Anti-theistic theories, being the Baird lecture for l877

OCT 24 1927^

i>i vision

c

Section 5

BL 200 .F55 1880 c.2
Flint, Robert, 1838-1910
Anti-theistic theories

ANTl-THEISTIC THEORIES

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THEISM.

Being the Baird Lecture for 1S76.
Third Edition. Crown octavo, 7s. Gd.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN EUROPE.

Vol. I., containing the History of that Philosophy
IN France and Germany.

Octavo, 15s.

William Blackwood & Sons, Edinljurdi and London.

<^'lo.

ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES

BEING

E\)t Bairtr ILecturc for 1877

BY

robert'flint

D.D., LL.D., F.K.S. T:.

•ROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

AUTHOR OF 'theism,' ' THE PHILOSOPHY OF

HISTORY IN EUROPE,' ETC.

SECOND EDITION

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXX

TO

tlTIlc iBcmoru of mu fHotficr

I nEDICAll- THIS \OL(JMi:

IN SORROWFUL AND AFFI- CTIONATE REMEMBRANCE

OF HER LOVE AND VIRTUES

PREFATORY NOTE.

The present volume is closely connected with the
work entitled * Theism/ which was published in
1877. The two works may be regarded as two
parts of a system of Natural Theology which is
still very far from complete.

The chief omission in the present volume
relates to Agnosticism. The explanation of the
omission is that the author was anxious to avoid,
in a semi -popular work, abstruse metaphysical
discussion, and has long cherished the hope of
being able, at some future time, to publish a
historical account and critical examination of the
various phases of Modern Agnosticism.

He has again to thank Mr James A. Campbell
of Stracathro for kindly assisting him in the work
of revision.

Johnstone Loogi:, Craigmillak Park,
Edinburgh, 20/A Miiy 1S79.

CONTENTS.

leCt.
J I. ATHEISM, ....

II. ANCIENT MATERIALISM,
IIJ. MODERN MATERIALISM,
IV. CONTEMPORARY OR SCIENTIFIC M

V. POSITIVISM

VI. SECULARISM, ....
VII. ARE THERE TRIBES OF ATHEISTS
VIII. PESSIMISM, ....
IX. HISTORY OF PANTHEISM,
X. PANTHEISM

39

74

ATERIALISM,

III

.

176

.

211

0

250

.

. 290

.

334

.

. 380

APPENDIX.

I. THE TERMS THEISM, DEISM, ATHEISM, AND ANTI-
THEISM, 441

11. ABSOLUTE ATHEISM IMPLIES INFINITE KNOWLEDGE, . 446

III. PHYSICUS, 450

IV. HISTORY, CAUSES, AND CONSEQUENCES OF ATHEISM, . 456

Contents.

V. LANGE'S HISTORY OF MATERIALISM,
VI. CHINESE MATERIALISM,
VII. HINDU MATERIALISM, .
VIII. EARLY GREEK MATERIALISM,
IX. EPICUREAN MATERIALISM,

X. MATERIALISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES,
XI. MATERIALISM OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGH
TEENTH CENTURIES, .

XII. LA METTRIE,

Xin. MIRABAUD AND VON HOLBACH, .
XIV, ENGLISH MATERIALISM IN THE FIRST HALF OF
THE NINKTEENTH CENTURY,
XV. RECENT MATERIALISM, .
V XVI. MATERIALISM AND FORCE, .
XVII. MATERIALISM AND LIFE,
XVIII. MATERIALISM AND MIND,
XIX. MATERIALISM AND MORALITY,
XX. POSITIVISM AND ITS SCHOOLS,
XXI. POSITIVIST LAW OF THREE STATES,
XXIL THE POSITIVIST RELIGION, .

XXIII. HISTORY OF SECULARISM,

XXIV. THE ATHEISM OF SECULARISM,
XXV. DARWINISM AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION,

XXVI. ALLEGED ATHEISM OF SOUTH AMERICAN TRIBES,
XXVII. ALLEGED ATHEISM OF NORTH AMERICAN TRIBES,
XXVIII. ALLEGED ATHEISM OF POLYNESIANS AND AUS-
TRALASIANS,

XXIX. ALLEGED ATHEISM OF AFRICAN TRIBES,
XXX. ALLEGED ATHEISM OF ESQUIMAUX,
XXXI. SIR J. LUBBOCK'S MISCELLANEOUS INSTANCES OF

ATHEISTICAL PEOPLES,

XXXII. POLYTHEISM, . .

459
462

463

465
467
46S

469
472

473

474
479
4S5
488
496
500

504
506

507
508

513
519
521

523

524
52S
530

Sl^
53^

Contents.

XI

XXXIII. PESSIMISM, .

XXXIV. HISTORIES OF PANTHEISM,
XXXV. HINDU PANTHEISM,

XXXVI. GREEK PANTHEISM,
XXXVII. JORDANO BRUNO,
XXXVIII. SPINOZA,

XXXIX. MODERN GERMAN PANTHEISM,
XL. MODERN FRENCH PANTHEISM,
XLI. MODERN ENGLISH PANTHEISM,

533
536
539

541
544
546
551
553
554

THEOLOGIC.
ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES.

LECTURE I.

ATHEISM.

I.

In the course of lectures which I dehvered last
year I endeavoured to show that theism was
true ; that there was an overwhelming- weight of
evidence in favour of the belief that the heavens
and the earth and all that they contain owe their
existence and continuance in existence to the wis-
dom and will of a supreme, self-existent, omnipo-
tent, omniscient, righteous, and benevolent Being,
who is distinct from, and independent of, what He
has created. In the course which I have under-
take n to deliver this year, I wish to subject to
examination the theories which are opposed to
theism, and I hope to be able to prove that they
are essentially irrational and erroneous. When

A

2 Anti-Theistic TJieorics.

engaged in the attempt to establish that theism
has a broad and soHd foundation both in fact and
reason, I contented myself with simply warding
off the attacks of those who deny that it has such
a foundation. But obviously more than this may
and should be done. It is our right and our duty
to inquire also if those who reject and assail theism
are themselves standing on firm ground, and if the
systems which have been raised in hostility to
theism are as impregnable as we have found itself
to be. It is this right which I intend to e±ercise ;
it is this duty which I shall endeavour to perform.
In dealing with theories which have nothing
in common except that they are antagonistic to
theism, it is necessary to have a general term to
designate them. Anti- theism appears to be the
appropriate word. It is, of course, much more
comprehensive in meaning than the term atheism.
It applies to all systems which are opposed to
theism. It includes, therefore, atheism. No sys-
tem is so opposed to theism as atheism ; it is the
extreme form of opposition to it. But short of
atheism there are anti - theistic theories. Poly-
theism is not atheism, for it does not deny that
there is a Deity; but it is anti-theistic, since it
denies that there is only one. Pantheism is not
atheism, for it admits that there is a God ; but it
is anti-theism, for it denies that God is a Being
distinct from creation and possessed of such attri-

W/iat Theism is. 3

butes as wisdom, and holiness, and love. Every
theory which refuses to ascribe to God an attribute
which is essential to a worthy conception of His
character is anti - theistic. Only those theories
which, refuse to acknowledge that there is evidence
even for' the existence of a God are atheistic. \,

An examination of anti-theistic theories ought
evidently to begin with atheism, — the complete
negation of theism. The term atheism, although
much less general in signification than anti-theism,
includes a multitude of systems. Atheism has a
great variety of forms. Its advocates are by no
means agreed among themselves. On the con-
trary, if their comparatively small number be
taken into account, they are far more divided
into sects than theists. They are at one only in
their utter rejection of theism. I am not aware
of any positive distinctive principle which atheists
hold in common. As soon as they attempt to
state a doctrine which may fill the place of theism,
dissension breaks out among them at all points.
It is an obvious consequence of the fact that
atheism is thus indefinite, divided, and varied, that
its chief phases must be discussed separately. It
cannot be treated fairly by being treated as what
it is not, — a single, self-consistent system. It is
really a series or aggregation of discordant and
conflicting systems. At the same time, some

^ See Appendix I.

Anti-TJieistic Theories.
general remarks regarding it may not be without

use.

Atheism Is the rejection of beHef in God. It
teaches either that there is no God, or that it is
impossible for man to know that there is a God, or
that there is no sufficient reason for beheving that
there is a God. In other words, it either absolute-
ly denies that there is a Divine Being, or it denies
that the human mind is capable of discovering
whether or not there is a Divine Being, or it
simply maintains that no valid proof of the ex-
istence of a Divine Being has been produced.
Atheism in the form of a denial of the existence
of a God has been called dogmatic atheism ;
atheism in the form of doubt of man's ability to
ascertain whether there is a God or not has been
called sceptical atheism ; atheism in the form of
mere rejection of the evidence which has been
presented for the existence of a God may be
called critical atheism. There is no individual
system of atheism, however, which is exclusively
dogmatic, exclusively sceptical, or exclusively
critical. These terras express accurately only
ideal distinctions which have never been exactly
realised. Sceptical atheism and critical atheism
are inseparable. A purely dogmatic atheism
would be utterly incredible. Sceptical atheism
and critical atheism have always been much
more prevalent than dogmatic atheism. In

Existence of A tJieism. 5

every form — even in its most modest form —
atheism pronounces all belief in God a delusion,
and all religion a fable. What is called practical
atheism is not a kind of thought or opinion, but
a mode of life. It may coexist with a belief in
the being of a God. It is the living as if there
were no God, whether we believe that there is a
God or not.

The existence of atheism has often been doubted.
It has been held to be absolutely impossible for
a man entirely to throw off belief in God. The
thought of a universe without a creator, without
a presiding mind and sustaining will, without a
judge of right and wrong, has seemed to many to
be so incredible that they have refused to admit
that it could be sincerely entertained by the human
mind. And it may be conceded that there is an
element of truth underlying this view. The whole
nature of man presupposes and demands God, and
is an enigma and self-contradiction if there be no
God. The reason of man can only rest in the
Divine Reason as the first cause ; his affections
tend to a supreme good which can only be found
in God ; his conscience contains a moral law which
implies a moral lawgiver. He can only be con-
scious of himself as dependent, finite, and imper-
fect, and consequently as distinguished from that
which is absolute, infinite, and perfect. In this
sense all theists will probably hold that the soul

6 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

bears within it a latent and implicit testimony
acrainst atheism and on behalf of theism ; and the
opinion is one which cannot be refuted otherwise
than by what would amount to a refutation of
theism itself But although man's whole nature
cries for God, and can only find its true life in
God, there can be little doubt that he may so
contradict himself, so violate the most essential
principles of his own nature, as to persuade him-
self that there is no reason in the universe higher
than his own, no good which is not earthly and
perishable, no righteous judge, no infinite and
eternal God. The number of those who have
gone this length may not have been so large as
it has sometimes been represented. Many have
certainly been called atheists unjustly and ca-
lumniously. Some may possibly have professed
themselves to be atheists who really professed a
religious belief which they overlooked. But that
there have been atheists — that there are atheists
— cannot reasonably be denied. When men teach
the most manifest and explicit atheism — when
they avow themselves to be atheists — when they
glory in the name — we must take them at their
word. To say that they do not conscientiously
believe what they teach is an assertion which no
one has a right to make unless he can conclusive-
ly prove it, and for which there will be found in
many cases no proof whatever. The strangest

Existence of A theism. y

and most monstrous beliefs can be conscientiously
held by the weak and erring- children of men. The
absurdities of superstition make easily credible the
sincerity of atheism. If one man can honestly
believe that there are a thousand fantastic gods,
another may honestly believe that there is no
god. Without hesitation or reservation, therefore,
I grant that Feuerbach fully meant what he said
when he wrote, " There is no God ; it is clear as
the sun and as evident as the day that there is no
God, and still more that there can be none ; "
5j:?-?.^3^X?_.SPU!Ce.n.s when he penned these words,
" Our enemy is God. Hatred of God is the begin-
ning of wisdom. If mankind would make true
progress, it must be on the basis of atheism ; " and
Mr Bradlaugh when he told his audience, ''My
friend Mr Holyoake says, with regard to the
words infidelity and atheism, that he objects to
them because of the opprobrium which has gath-
ered round them. The people who fight for old
nationalities remember the words of opprobrium
that have been heaped on their country and their
cause, but only to fight to redeem cause and coun-
try from that opprobrium. They do not admit the
opprobrium to be deserved, but they fight to show
that the whole is a lie. And I maintain the oppro-
brium cast upon the word atheism is a lie. I believe
atheists as a body to be men deserving respect,
and I do not care what kind of character religious

8 Anti-Theistic Theories.

men may put round the word atheist. I would
fight until men respect it." I know no reason for
suspecting the sincerity of these men or of these
statements, and therefore I do not suspect it.

There are open and avowed atheists whom we
are bound to believe to be what they profess them-
selves to be. There are also some who disclaim
atheism, yet who plainly teach it under other
names. A large amount of the speculation which
is called pantheistic might with equal propriety be
called atheistic. Many materialists have repelled
the charge of atheism, because they held matter
to be endowed with eternal unchanging properties
and powers ; many positivists and secularists have
fancied that they could not be properly called
atheists because they did not undertake to prove
that there is no God, but only to show that there is
no reason for supposing that there is one ; but, of
course, belief in the eternity of matter and motion
is not belief in the existence of God, and atheism
is not only the belief that God's existence can be
disproved, but also the belief that it cannot be
proved. We have no. desire to attach to any man
a name which he dislikes, but a regard to truth
forbids us to concede that atheism only exists
where it is avowed.

Atheists have seldom undertaken to do more
than to refute the reasons adduced in favour of
belief in God. They have rarely pretended to

The Denial that there is a God. 9

prove that there is no God ; they have maintained
that the existence of God cannot be established,
but not that His non-existence can be established ;
they have tried to justify their unbelief, but they
have not sought to lay a foundation for disbelief
And the reason is obvious. It is proverbially
difficult to prove a negative, and there can be no
negative so difficult to prove as that there is no
God. Were a man to be landed on an unknown
island, the print of a foot, a shell, a feather, a
scratch on the bark of a tree, the perforation or
indentation or upheaval of a little earth, would be
sufficient to show him that some living creature
had been there ; but he would require to traverse
the whole island, and examine every nook and
corner, every object and every inch of space in
it, before he was entitled to affirm that no living
creature had been there. The larger the territory
to be traversed and examined, the more difficult
would it necessarily be to show that it had not a
single animal inhabitant. So to show that there
is a God may be very easy, but to prove that there
is certainly none must be extremely difficult, if not
impossible. There may be as many witnesses to
God's existence as there are creatures in the whole
compass of heaven and earth, but before we can
be sure that nothing testifies to His existence, we
must know all things. The territory which has in
this case to be surveyed and investigated is the

10

A nti- TJicistic Theories.

universe in all its length and breadth ; it is eter-
nal time and boundless space, with all the events
which have occurred in time, and all the objects
which occupy space. Before a man can be war-
ranted to affirm that nowhere throughout all this
territory is there any trace of God's existence,
he must have seen it all and comprehended it
all, which would require omnipresence and om-
niscience, or, in other words, would imply that he
is himself God.

Foster and Chalmers have so admirably pre-
sented this argument in celebrated passages of
their writings that it is unnecessary to dwell upon
it further.^ It has only been attempted to be
refuted by an author who has fallen into singular
mistakes as to its nature. Mr Holyoake fancies
that it turns upon an arbitrary use of the words
" denial " and '' knowledge." There is not the
slightest foundation for such a notion. The word
denial, and even all the sentences which contain
it, might be deleted without the argument losing
a particle of its force. The word knowledge is
employed in its ordinary and most general signifi-
cation. The knowledge of the eyesight is no more
demanded of the atheist for his negation than it
is alleged by the theist for his affirmation. The
whole argument turns simply on the manifest and
indubitable difference between proving an affirma-
^ See Appendix II.

The Denial that there is a God. 1 1

tive and proving a negative. From that difference
it follows necessarily that the inference that there is
a God may be warranted by a very limited know-
ledge of nature, but that the inference that there
is no God can only be warranted by a complete
knowledge of nature. If the author mentioned had
not thoroughly misconceived the character of the
argument he would never have imagined that it
could be thus refuted by inversion. " The wonder,"
he says, "turns on the great process by which a man
could grow to the immense intelligence which can
knozv that there is a God. What powers, what lights
are requisite for this attainment ! This intelligence
involves the very attributes of Divinity, which must
therefore be possessed by the theist while they are
pretended to be sought. For unless this man is
omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every
place in the universe, he cannot know but there
may be, in some place, manifestations of nature
independent of Deity, by which even he would be
overpowered. If he does not know absolutely
every agent in the universe, the one that he does
not know may be the eternal source of all life. If
he is not himself the chief agent in the universe,
and does not know that God is so — that which is so
may be the eternal and independent element which
animates nature. If the theist is not in absolute
possession of all the propositions which constitute
universal truth, the one which he wants may be,

12 Anti-TJieistic TJicorics.

that nature is the primordial and sole existence.
If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of
all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be
nature. If he does not know everything that has
been done in the immeasurable ages that are past,
some things may have been done by nature. Thus,
unless the theist knows all things — that is, pre-
cludes all other independent existence by being
the infinite existence himself — he does not know
that the nature whose supremacy he rejects, does
not self-subsist and act on its own eternal essence."
Foster's argument is here travestied, but certainly
not answered. Where is the wonder that men
should know that there is a God 1 Such knowledge
must indeed be elevated and glorious, but it may
well be within the reach of a feeble and limited
intelligence. It implies a certain likeness to God,
but none of the distinctive attributes of God. A
single square foot of earth may contain numerous
proofs that there is a God, but only the entire
universe can furnish evidence that there is none.
He who does not know absolutely every agent in
the universe cannot be sure that the one of which
he is ignorant may not be the eternal source of all
life and thought, while the most familiar manifesta-
tions of life and thought may reasonably convince
him that their eternal source cannot be dead and
thoughtless matter. If the theist undertook to
prove the non-existence of nature, — that there

The Denial that tJiere is a God. 1 3

are no natural causes and no effects produced by
them, — he would venture on the same kind of task
as that of the atheist who attempts to establish
that there is no God, and his audacity might then
be rebuked and his want of wisdom evinced by the
same kind of reasoning. In that case refutation
by inversion would be legitimate and conclusive;
but it is clearly inapplicable in any other case.
Before it can be employed some one must be
found to maintain that there is no nature, which
is the only proposition corresponding to there is
no God. But no theist maintains the non-exist-
ence of nature. What he maintains is that nature
is an effect whose cause is God.

If the argument of Foster and Chalmers be well
founded, atheism, ought certainly not to be a self-
confident system. It can never be sure that there
is no God, and can never have a right to deny that
there is a God. It must simply affirm that theism
has not been proved true, and must abandon the
hope of ever proving it to be false. It must rest
in a state of suspense and hesitation from which
there is no probability of deliverance, unless by
theism being proved true. It must never express
itself more strongly than by such phrases as
"there is no knowing whether there be a God
or not," — "there is no saying," — "it doth not yet
appear." Is this not a very strange and dreary
condition for the human mind to be condemned

14 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

to abide in ? If such be the natural condition of
the human mind, must not the constitution both
of the mind and of the universe in relation to the
mind be about the worst conceivable? But is it
not much more likely that atheists have deceived
themselves, than that either the mind or the uni-
verse has been so badly made as atheism im-
plies? Is it not much more likely that atheism
is false, than that the human mind has been made
not for truth, but for doubt ?

To deny that God can be known is scarcely less
presumptuous than to deny that God is. For, it
will be observed, it assumes that we are capable of
describing the limits both of human attainment
and of Divine power. It assumes that we are
not only able to say here is a proposition which
the human mind can never ascertain to be true,
but also here is a proposition which cannot be re-
vealed to be true even by an infinite mind, suppos-
ing such a mind to exist. It assumes, that is to
say, in the first place, a kind of knowledge of the
human mind such as no man has got. We can
discover the conditions and laws to which reason-
ing and research must be conformed if the human
mind would attain truth ; but we cannot ascertain
the external limits of intellectual progress. To
lay down that this or that proposition, which in-
volves in itself no contradiction, can never be
known, never be proved, is sheer dogmatism. The

TJlc Denial that God can be knozvn, ■ 1 5

mind has no right to assign fixed limits to its own
advancement in knowledge ; it has no warrant
even for doubting that it may advance for ever,
its horizon constantly receding, its range of vision
growing always wider and more distinct. When
the atheist declares, therefore, that God cannot be
known, he dogmatises presumptuously as to the
limits of human power ; he arrogates to him-
self a superhuman knowledge of the possible at- /
tainments of the human mind. But worse than
this, while denying that an infinite mind can never
be known, he assumes that he himself knows what
an infinite mind would be capable of He tells us
in one breath that we can never know even the
existence of an almighty Being, and in the next
that he himself knows what such a Being could
not do ; that he knows that God could not make
His existence known to us. Under the apparent
humility of the declaration God cannot be known,
there lurks the affirmation that a finite mind can
trace the limits of infinite power. Therefore, I
say, to deny that God can be known is scarcely
less presumptuous than to deny that God is. It
implies in him who makes the denial the posses-
sion of a Divine attribute — the possession of infi-
nite knowledge. ,J^^

The atheist, then, who would not virtually de-
clare himself to be a god, must not venture to
deny either that God is or that God can be known,

1 5 Anti-Theistic Theories,

but must be content merely to deny the sufficiency
of the evidence for God's existence. He must be
content to be a mere critic; he is bound to confess
that atheism is really no theory or explanation of
the universe ; that no positive or independent or
scientific proof of it need be looked for ; and that
facts sufficient to overthrow it may be brought to
light any instant Atheists are, however, seldom
thus diffident, and we cannot wonder that they are
not. There are very few minds which could ac-
quiesce in a hopeless and inexplicable hesitancy
and suspense. Atheism would make no converts
unless it showed more confidence than it is ration-
ally entitled to do.

Not unfrequently it displays great confidence.
Thus Von Holbach, in the ' System of Nature,'
tells his readers that the existence of God is " not
a problem, but simply an impossibility." But for
this strong statement he had only the weak rea-
son that "we cannot know God truly unless we
are God." We have just seen that to know there
is no God, or that God cannot be known, imphes
such knowledge as only a God can have, but that
only a very little knowledge may suffice reason-
ably to convince us that there is a God. Feuer-
bach, as 1 have already mentioned, declares it
"clear as the sun and as evident as the day, not
only that there is no God, but that there can be
none." We seek in vain, however, for the demon-

Atheism often Dogmatic. ly

stratlon of this startling assertion. In its place there
is presented to us an unreasoned and superficial
hypothesis as to the origin, nature, and history of
religion. Religion, in Feuerbach's opinion, is self-
delusion in the form of self-deification. It is his
own nature which man projects out of himself, per-
sonifies, and worships. He idealises himself, be-
lieves the ideal real, and adores the imaginary
being whom he has created. Religion is thus a
phase of insanity under which the whole human race
laboured for thousands of years, until the one wise
man appeared who discovered that his fellow-men
had been idiotically bowing and cringing before
their own shadow. It is this discovery which makes
it "clear as the sun and evident as the day, not
only that there is no God, but that there can be
none." Mainlander claims, in a recently pub-
lished work, to have for the first time founded
atheism on a scientific basis. But to accomplish
his task he finds it necessary to represent Chris-
tianity as, like Budhism, a system of atheism.
Maintaining the atheism of these two religions, he
infers that atheism is the natural croal of human
development. The mass of assertions which he
accumulates around this ludicrous argument he
assures us is a scientific demonstration. Czolbe,
Diihring, and some other German atheists, might
be referred to as equally audacious in profession
and feeble in performance. A zealous English

B

1 8 Anti-TJieistic TJieorics,

advocate of atheism, Mr Bradlaugh, has frequently
said, " If God is defined to mean an existence
other than the existence of which I am a mode,
then I deny God, and affirm that it is impossible
God can be. That is, I affirm one existence, and
deny that there can be more than one." But the
terms " existence " and " mode " are here em-
ployed in so peculiar and equivocal a manner that
the declaration may have either a theistic, pan-
theistic, or atheistic meaning. It has no proper
or definite meaning.

Atheism is essentially irrational when not
merely critical. And even when merely critical
it is not very rational. This statement is based
on the entire argumentation in the previous course
of lectures. The chief aim of that course was to
exhibit the evidence for the existence of God, and
the proof of theism is necessarily the refutation of
atheism. Further, a secondary aim, kept in view
throughout, was directly to repel the objections
which atheism has brought against the validity and
sufficiency of the fundamental theistic proofs ;
to show that their weight is scarcely appreciable
when fairly poised against the reasons in the op-
posite scale, and that, almost without exception,
the subtlest and most plausible of them indicate
only defects or difficulties in the metaphysics of
religious speculation, and should have no influence
whatever on the practical decision, at which the

Atheism not satisfactory to the Intellect. 19

mind ought to arrive, as to whether there is a God
or not. If I succeeded in doing so I must, of
course, have refuted the atheism which rests on
these objections, — the atheism which is purely
critical. But whether I succeeded or not, it will
be better now to offer some general considerations
on atheism in its intellectual, emotional, and moral
aspects, than to return on what has been already
done, or at least, on what has been already tried
to be done.^

II.

How does atheism satisfy the intellect ? There
is around us a world of order and beauty ; a world
in which elements are wonderfully compounded
and qualities wonderfully associated — in which
there is at once an admirable regularity and an
admirable diversity — in which all things work
together. What explanation does atheism give
of this world } There is an atheism which does
not pretend to give any explanation ; which tells
us even that there is no explanation to be given,
and that it is foolish to ask for any. This kind
of atheism, to be consistent, ought to forbid all
investigation whatever ; ought to lay an arrest on
thought and research at the very outset of their
course ; ought to explain nothing ; ought not to
recognise that there is any such thing as law and

^ See Appendix III.

20 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories.

order. This kind of atheism is a direct and com-
plete violation of the rational principle in man.
The human intellect is by its very constitution
compelled to seek first causes for events, and final
causes for order and adaptation ; and it has no
right to stop short, as the atheist would have it,
when it cannot advance farther without rising to
the apprehension of a Creative Reason. If it will
not go as far as its principles legitimately lead, it
has no right to start at all; it must deny itself
entirely ; it must wholly renounce its own nature.
In other words, a brute may, but a man cannot, be
a consistent atheist of this class. Pure empiricism
is so far beneath humanity as to be beyond its
reach, and can support nothing either human or
rational.

There is an atheism which teaches that the v/orld
is but the last effect of an eternal succession of
causes and effects, and that there has been no first
cause. The mind, however, rejects as absolutely
absurd the notion of an eternal series of worlds
which depends on no originating principle. It
demands a first cause, a true and self-existent first
cause. A series may be indefinitely extensible ;
it cannot be infinitely extended. Where there is
a last term there must have been a first term. If
each of a series of effects be dependent, all the
effects of that series must be dependent, and on
a cause which precedes them. If the last link of a

Atheism not satisfactory to the Intellect. 21

chain be supported by the link above it, that by
the third hnk, the third by the fourth, and so on,
the entire chain cannot hang upon nothing. An
endless adjournment of causes is a process which
is meaningless and useless, and in which reason
can never acquiesce. For reason to abandon belief
in a self- existent eternal cause for belief in an
eternal series, every part of which is the effect of
an antecedent cause, while the whole is an effect
without a cause, is a suicidal, a self-destructive act.
Besides, the supposition of the eternity of the
series of worlds obviously cannot free us from the
necessity of believing in an eternally operative in-
telligence to account for the order, the mechanical
and organic adjustments, the finite minds, &c., to
be found in these worlds. The conviction which a
man feels when looking at St Paul's that it must
have had an architect of wonderful genius, is not
disturbed or lessened by his knowledge that it was
built two centuries ago. And in like manner, the
inference that the world must have had an intel-
ligent cause ought to be as legitimate and strong
were it eternal, or the last of an eternal series, as
if it were the only world and had been created
four thousand years or four days ago. The infer-
ence from order and adjustment to intelligence is
unaffected by the consideration of time ; it is valid
for all time, and for eternity as well as for time.
The eternity of the series of worlds supposed can

22 Ajiti-Theistic Theories,

be no evidence that it is uncaused by intelligence ;
it can only entitle us to affirm that if the series
have a cause, the cause must be eternal, since the
effect is eternal. The hypothesis of an eternal
series of worlds is thus an utterly vain and un-
reasonable device ; a most futile attempt to evade
the obligation of belief in God.

There is an atheism which teaches us that mat-
ter and its laws account for all the harmonies and
utilities of nature, for all the faculties and aspira-
tions of the human soul, and for the progress of
history. But this form of atheism also, popular
although it be, fails to establish any of its pre-
tensions. It neither accounts for matter and its
laws nor shows that they do not require to be
accounted for. It assumes the self - existence of
matter and its laws, although theism founding on
science undertakes to show that they must have
had an origin. The basis of this atheism is there-
fore a manifest petitio principii. And, even with
its initial assumption, it does not explain the har-
monies of the physical universe, nor the properties
of vegetable and animal life, nor the mind of man,
nor his moral principles and religious convictions.
It puts what is lowest and most imperfect first,
what is highest and most perfect last. It regards
this contradiction of all rational thinking as a
grand achievement.

There is an atheism, incredible as it may sound,

AtJieisui not satisfactory to the Intellect. 23

which teaches that the universe, with all its objects
and laws, is the creation of the finite human mind.
What we call outward things are, according to this
hypothesis, but mental states. All that is is ego ;
is the self-acting of itself and limiting itself, and so
producing the noji-ego or universe. Such is the
doctrine on which a kind of atheism has been
founded, which has sometimes received the name
of autotheism, seeing that it would make man his 1
own God and the creator of the heavens and earth.
The celebrated Fichte was, at a certain stage of
his philosophical career, accused of atheism in this
form. He was supposed to teach a purely sub-
jective idealism which would have been irreconcil-
able with any worthier religious theory ; to main-
tain that the moral order of the universe which
he identified with God was, like the universe itself,
the creation of the personal ego. But he indig- j
nantly repelled the charge and denied that he had 1
ever confounded the personal with the absolute
ego, or taught a purely subjective idealism, or
overlooked that development is inexplicable with-
out belief in an immutable Being ; and although
the view generally given of his philosophy is in-
consistent with these exculpatory statements, I
believe that they must be accepted. It is admitted I
on all hands that, later in life, this noble-minded )
man was neither subjective idealist nor autotheist.
Schopenhauer and others do not hesitate to tell

24 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

us that within the mind, some of them expressly
say within the brain, of man, the immensities of
time and space and all their contents lie enclosed ;
in Schopenhauer's own language, *'did not human
brains, objects scarcely as big as a large fruit,
sprout up incessantly, like mushrooms, the world
would sink into nothingness." This strange hypo-
thesis finds a strange counterpart in the specula-
tions of two of the latest of German atheists as to
the magnitude of the brain. Schopenhauer thought
it no bigger than it seemed to be, and yet sup-
posed that it contained the universe. Czolbe and
Ueberweg fancy that its apparent size is but an
extremely diminished picture of its real size ; that,
in fact, it is colossal, stretching beyond the iEixed
stars, and covering the whole field of vision. Cer-
tainly either the universe would require to be
much smaller than it is, or the mind of man much
greater than it is, before the notion that the latter
is the source or cause of the former can be for a
moment entertained. The atheism which makes
the finite mind the creator and sustainer of the
universe is its own best refutation.

Atheism, then, yields no satisfaction to the
reason, but is in all its forms a violation of the
conditions of rational belief. Does it satisfy better
the demands of the heart t The atheist is without
God in the world, and therefore has only the
world. Will the world without God satisfy a

A tJieisni not satisfactory to the Heart. 2 5

human heart ? No man will venture to maintain
that material things and outward advantages —
meat and drink and raiment, wealth, honours,
influence — can satisfy it. The heart of man — the
atheist himself, if he be a person of any refinement
and elevation of character, will grant at once — can-
not be content with merely material and earthly
good ; it must have something which responds to
higher faculties than the sensuous and the selfish.
It would be to insult the atheist to suppose him
even to doubt this. What he will say is that
although without God there remains to him truth,
beauty, and virtue, and that these things will
yield to him such satisfaction as his nature admits
of, and one of which he needs not be ashamed.
Let us see.

The truth in w^hich the atheist must seek the
satisfaction of his heart can only be, of course,
mere truth, — truth apprehended not as expressive
of the thought and affection and will of God, but
as expressive of the properties and relations of
material things and human beings. Suppose, how-
ever, that a man knew not only all that science
has at present to tell, but all that it will ever be
able to tell about the world of matter and the
mind of man and human history, would it be
reasonable to expect this fully to satisfy him .'' I
think not. Were all that is to be known about the
material universe actually known, the man who

26 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

knew it would simply have within himself the true
reflection of what was existing without him ; on
his spirit which thinks there would simply be a
correct picture of that which does not think. But
the soul which would not be satisfied with the
very world itself, could it have it, will surely not
be satisfied with that pale reflection of it which
constitutes science. The soul which is itself so
superior every way to the world cannot have for
its highest end merely to serve as a mirror to it,
and to show forth not the likeness and glory of
God, but of what is without life, without reason,
and without love. And were all that is to be
known about the mind of man actually known,
the soul which knew it would only have a know-
ledge of itself. But could any person except a
fool rest in complacent contemplation of himself.''
True self-knowledge is very much the reverse of
pleasant or satisfying. Shame and terror are
often its most natural effects. Science, culture,
truth, when separated from their one eternal
source in the Infinite Life, the Infinite Love, show
us nothing higher than our own poor selves —
nothing that we can look up to — no object of
trust, of adoration, of affection. How, then, can
they satisfy hearts the true life of which consists
in the exercise of faith and hope, reverence and
love } Severed from what will worthily develop
the higher emotional principles of human nature,

Atheism not satisfactory to the Heart. 27

they may lead the soul into a land as waste and
famishing as what only concerns the body, or even
into a still more howling and hungry wilderness.
The spiritual affections if denied appropriate sus-
tenance, if presented only with purely intellectual
truth, will either die of inanition to the sore im-
poverishment of the mind, or they will live on to
torment it with a pain more grievous than that of
unappeased animal appetite. For true it is, as an
eloquent preacher has said, in words which I can-
not exactly recall, but which are nearly as follows :
"There is on earth a greater misfortune than to
crave for bread and not to have it, and a sad-
ness more complete than that of bereavement,
sickness, poverty, even pushed to their extrem-
est limits ; there is the bitterness of a soul which
has studied, and searched, and speculated, which
has pursued with eager and anxious heart, truth
in many directions, and yet, because it sought
it away from the light and life which are in
God, has only found in all directions doubt and
nothinq-ness."

What we cannot find in truth, however, may we
not find in the enjoyment of the beautiful in
nature and art ? In his last work — ' The Old and
the New Faith ' — this is what Strauss points to as
a substitute for religion. The admiration of fair
scenery, of painting, music, and poetry, may, it is
hoped, fill the void in the heart caused by the

28 Anti-Theistic Theories,

absence of faith in God. The picture-gallery, the
concert-room, the theatre, may help us to dispense
with the Church and its services. Now, certainly,
it is greatly to be desired that the love of the
beautiful in nature and art were more widely
diffused among all classes of the community. He
who contributes to its cultivation and extension
confers on his fellow-men no mean boon, no slight
service. But so far from being able to supply the
place of the love of God, the love of the beautiful
itself withers and corrupts, becomes weak or be-
comes foul, severed from that love. Art of a high
and healthy order has ever drawn its inspiration
largely from religion. The grandest buildings, the
most beautiful paintings, the noblest music, the
greatest poems, are religious. The arts have
hitherto spread and advanced in the service of
religion, or at least in connection with it. They
have never flourished except in a spiritual atmo-
sphere which is the breath of religious faith
Atheism — unbelief — has, alike in ancient and
in modern times, and in all lands, been found
fatal to art. Before it is entitled to point us to
art as a substitute for religion, it must be able to
show us where there is an art which can elevate
and improve the mind that has not been directly
or indirectly engendered by religion. It must
show us that it can create and sustain a noble art.
Atheistical art, so far as the world has yet known

A tJieism, A rt, and Nature. 29

it, has been art of a diseased and degrading kind.
It need scarcely be added that art, whether good
or bad, can never be more for the majority of men
than a source of comparatively rare, fragmentary,
and temporary enjoyment. It is for the leisure
hour and for the lighter moods and occasions of
life ; not for times either of heavy toil or heavy
trial. It were well that hard-working men valued
art more generally and highly than they do, and
so enjoyed such power as it possesses, — a real and
precious power of its kind, — to refresh those who
are weary, and to soothe those who are troubled ;
but it were ill that they abandoned for it religion.
Art is a beautiful flower, but religion is a strong
staff. Art is a sweet perfume, but religion is
necessary sustenance. Without aid from art the
spirit will lack many a charm, but without aid
from religion it will lack life itself.

It is said that nature lies open to the inspection
and contemplation of all, and presents the same
beauties and sublimities to the atheist as to the
theist ? It must be answered that the atheist and
the theist, so far as they are thoughtful and self-
consistent men, cannot but view nature very dif-
ferently and feel very differently towards it. To
the atheist nature may be beautiful and sublime,
but it must be, above all, terrible. Nature stands
to him in place of Deity, but is the mere embodi-
ment of force, the god of the iron foot, without ear

30 Anti-TJieistic Theories,

for prayer, or heart for sympathy, or arm for help.
It is immense, it is sublime, it sparkles with
beauties, but it is senseless, aimless, pitiless. It is
an interminable succession of causes and effects,
with no reason or love as either their beginning or
end ; it is an unlimited ocean of restlessness and
change, the waves of which heave and moan, under
the influence of necessity, in darkness for evermore;
it is an enormous mechanism, driving and grinding
on of itself from age to age, but towards no goal
and for no good. Says Strauss himself, " In the
enormous machine of the universe, amid the in-
cessant whirl and hiss of its jagged iron wheels —
amid the deafening crash of its ponderous stamps
and hammers — in the midst of this terrific com-
motion, man, a helpless and defenceless creature,
finds himself placed— not secure for a moment,
that on some unguarded motion, a wheel may
not seize and rend him, or a hammer crush him
to powder. This sense of abandonment is at first
very awful." And we may add, the longer it is
realised it should grow more and more awful, ever
deeper, denser, and darker, until the atheist feels
that for him to talk of heartily enjoying nature
were a cruel mockery of his own helplessness. We
can only be rationally free to enjoy nature when
we have confidence that one hand of an almighty
Father is working the mechanism of the universe
and another guiding His children in the midst of

A theism a? id Morality. 3 1

it, so that neither wheel nor hammer shall injure
one hair of their heads.

When truth and beauty fail, will the atheist find
his virtue suffice ? Will morality, when exclusive
of service to God, when separated from the thought
of God, satisfy and sustain the human heart ?
Does atheism meet the claims and supply the
wants of conscience ? This is to ask, in other
words, if a man will be as strong for duty without
as with belief in an almighty and perfect moral
Judge and Governor ? And the question is surely
one which answers itself. The believer in God has
every motive to virtue which the unbeliever has,
and he has his belief in addition, which is the
mightiest motive of all. It is often hard enough
even for the believing man to conquer his passions,
to bear the burden which Providence imposes, and
to be valiant for the right against wrong ; but how
much harder must it be for the unbeliever t His
evil desires are not checked by the feeling that
Infinite Justice beholds them and condemns, nor
are his strivings after God sustained by the con-
sciousness that the Almighty and All-merciful ap-
proves and favours them. When he sees false-
hood widely triumphant over truth, vice over
virtue, he has no right to expect that it will ever
be otherwise. If the highest wisdom and goodness
in existence are man's own, the mystery is not
that the world is so bad as it is, but that it is

32 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

not indescribably worse. When sickness and loss
come to the atheist they may be patiently and
bravely borne, but they cannot be welcomed as
they may by one who feels that they are sent
to him by supreme wisdom and love to purify and
discipline his character, and to work out in him
and for him an exceeding weight of glory. It is
not for him to say —

*' Oh ! there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn, and ask
Of Him to be our friend ! "

And what can he say in its stead ? When death
enters his home and strikes down some dear one,
he hears no Father's voice, sees no Father's hand,
feels no consolation of a comforting Spirit, but sits,
in a darkness which is unrelieved by a single ray
of light, mourning over the work of the senseless
enerf^ies of nature. When death lays hold of him-
self, and he knows that there is no escape, he can
only yield himself up to a dread uncertainty, or to
the cold comfort of annihilation, the hope of being
dissolved into the elements of which he was at first
compounded — earth to earth, ashes to ashes ; mind
and heart as v/ell as body to ashes — thoughts, affec-
tions, virtue to ashes ; all, dust to dust. Is there
inuch encouragement to virtue there }

The atheist may reply, I take from life no moral
support which it really possesses ; I do not remove

Atheism and Morality. 33

God from the world, but find the world without
God, and I cannot rest my confidence on what
seems to me to be a fiction. He may urge, also,
that truth must be accepted, whether it appear to
us to be all that is morally desirable or not. But
one who answers thus cannot have understood the
tenor of what we have advanced. If the atheist be
right, of course it is not he who takes from life any
hope, or strength, or charm which truly belongs
to it. That truth must be accepted, whether sweet
or bitter, consoling or desolating, is what no one
doubts. But the question is, Can truth and good-
ness be at variance with one another.? Can the
belief of falsehood be more favourable to the
moral perfection of mankind than the belief of
truth } The most intrepid lover of truth may
well hesitate before he answers in the affirmative.
It is probably, indeed, impossible to show on
atheistical principles why reason and virtue should
not be in antagonism — why falsehood, if beHeved,
should not be more conducive in many cases to
virtue and happiness than truth ; but the conclu-
sion is none the less one which must seem per-
fectly monstrous to any mind which is not griev-
ously perverted either intellectually or morally.
If it were accepted, mental life could have no
unity or harmony. For who could decide be-
tween the competing and conflicting claims of
truth and virtue, of reason and morality ? Neither

C

34 Anti-Theistic Theories.

the truth unfavourable to morahty nor the moraHty
capable of being injured by truth would deserve,
or could be expected to receive, the homage due
to truth and morality when allied and accordant.

Atheism has not unfrequently been advocated
on political grounds. Religion has been presented
as the support of tyranny and the cause of strife.
Its abolition, it has been argued, would emancipate
the mind and secure peace. This view will always
be found to rest on the confusion of religion with
superstition. But superstition is as distinct from
religion as from atheism. Superstition and athe-
ism are both contraries to religion, and, as was
long ago remarked, are closely akin. They are
related to religion as the alternating feverish heat
and shivering cold of bodily disease are related
to the equable temperature of health. The one
gives rise to the other; the one easily passes
into the other. Each is to a large extent charge-
able, not only with the evils which it directly pro-
duces, but with those which it originates by way
of reaction. Both flow from ignorance and errone-
ous views of Divine things. " The atheist," as Plu-
tarch tells us, " thinks that there is no God ; the
superstitious man would fain think so, but believes
against his will, for he fears to do otherwise. Super-
stition generates atheism, and afterwards furnishes
it with an apology, which, although neither true nor
lovely, yet lacks not a specious pretence." On the

A tJieisni and Politics. 35

other hand, atheism drives men into superstition.
Wherever it spreads, religious credulity and ser-
vility spread along with it, or spring up rapidly
after it. A reasonable religion is the only effec-
tive barrier against either atheism or superstition.

It has been disputed whether atheism or super-
stition be politically the more injurious. Perhaps
the problem is too vague to be resolved. But cer-
tainly the spread of atheism in a land may well
be regarded with the most serious alarm. In the
measure that a people ceases to believe in _ God_
and an eternal world, it must become debased,
disorganised, and incapable of achieving noble
deeds. History confirms this on many a page.
" All epochs," wrote Goethe, " in which faith,
under whatever form, has prevailed, have been
brilliant, heart-elevating, and fruitful, both to con-
temporaries and posterity. All epochs, on the
contrary, in which unbelief, under whatever form,
has maintained a sad supremacy, even if for the
moment they glitter with a false splendour, vanish
from the memory of posterity, because none care
to torment themselves with the knowledge of that
which has been barren."

"The idea of an intelligent First Cause," says
Mazzini, "once destroyed, — the existence of a
moral law, supreme over men, and constituting
an obligation, a duty imposed upon all men, is
destroyed with it ; so also all possibility of a law

36 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories,

of progress, or intelligent design, regulating the
life of humanity. Both progress and morality
then become mere transitory facts, having no
deeper source than the tendency or impulse of
individual organisation ; no other sanction than
the arbitrary will or varying interest of individ-
uals, or — force. In fact, the only imaginable
sources of life are — God, chance, or the blind,
insuperable force of things ; and if we deny the
first to accept either of the others, in the name
of whom, or of what, can we assume any right to
educate 1 In the name of whom, or of what, can
we condemn the man who abandons the pursuit
of the general good through egotism } In the
name of whom, or of what, can you protest
against injustice, or assert your duty and right
of contending against it 1 Whence can you de-
duce the existence of an aim common to all
men, and therefore giving you an authority to
declare to them that they are bound by duty to
fraternal association in pursuit of that common
aim } "

The prevalence of atheism in any land must
bring with it national decay and disaster./ Its
triumph in our land would bring with it, I believe,
hopeless national ruin. If the workmen of the
large towns of this country were, as a body, to
adopt the principles which have at certain periods
swayed the minds of the workmen of Paris and

Pi'evalence of A theism. ^y

Lyons, — were as a body to adopt atheism and its
concomitant beliefs, — utter anarchy would be in-
evitable. In such a case, owing to the very pros-
perity we have reached, and the consequent ex-
treme concentration of population within a narrow
circuit, the problem of government would be a
hundredfold more difficult in England than it has
been in France and Germany even in their darkest
days. But no man who examines the signs of the
times can fail to see much tending to show that
atheism may possibly come to have its day of
fatal supremacy. Polytheism there is nothing to
fear from. Pantheism, except in forms in which
it is hardly distinguishable from atheism, there is
comparatively little to fear from. It is improbable
that this country will be afflicted to any great ex-
tent with a fever of idealistic pantheism resem-
bling that which Germany has passed through.
What chiefly threatens us is atheism in the forms
of agnosticism, positivism, secularism, materialism,
&c. ; and it does so directly and seriously. The
most influential authorities in science and philo-
sophy, and a host of the most popular representa-
tives of literature, are strenuously propagating it.
Through the periodical press it exerts a formida-
ble power. It has in our large centres of popula-
tion missionaries who, I fear, are better qualified
for their work than many of those whom our
Churches send forth to advocate to the same classes

38 Anti-TJicistic TJieories.

the cause of Christianity. There is a great deal in
current modes of thought and feeling, and in the
whole constitution and character of contemporary
society, to favour its progress. Atheism is a foe
opposition to which, and to what tends to produce
it, ought to draw together into earnest co-opera-
tion all who believe in God and love their country.^

^ See Appendix IV.

MaterialisDi. 39

LFXTURE II.

ANCIENT MATERIALISM.

In the present clay there is no kind of anti-theism,
no kind of atheism, so prevalent and so formidable
as materialism. Wherever we find just now an
anti-theistic or atheistic system popular, we may
be certain that it is either a form of materialism or
that it has originated in materialism, and draws
from it its life and support. It is necessary for
us, therefore, to turn our attention to materialism,
the chief and central source of contemporary anti-
theistic speculations. I shall treat of it at some
length, owing to its importance, but I shall treat
of it only in so far as it is anti-theistic. It has
other aspects and relations, but these I do not re-
quire to consider. With much that has sometimes
been included in materialism, I have fortunately
here no concern.

Materialists have not unfrequently sought to

40 Anti-Theistic Theories,

represent the history of physical science and
speculation as inseparable from, if not identical
with, the history of materialism. Their right to
do so is, of course, denied by all their opponents.
Spiritualists of every class maintain that nothing
accomplished by physical science has carried us
by a single step nearer materialism. All consist-
ent theists believe that the progress of physical
science has been a continuous illustration of the
power, wisdom, and goodness of God. Material-
ism cannot be allowed, therefore, quietly and illo-
gically to take for granted that the interests of
physical science are specially bound up with its
own. At the same time it may be acknowledged,
and I desire to acknowledge it cordially, that
materialism and materialistic theories have largely
\ contributed to the advancement of physical science,
and have indirectly profited even mental science.
It would be altogether unjust to regard them as
merely hurtful or merely useless. They have
suggested and stimulated the most varied re-
searches. It is no accidental circumstance that
they have abounded during every age in which
physical science has been prosecuted with vigour
and success. Wherever physical science is gener-
ally enterprising it must also be often audacious.
If it were never unreasonably hopeful and ambi-
tious, its achievements would be comparatively
few and mean. The material universe can be

Materialism and Physical Science. 41

under-estimated as well as over-estimated, and the
exaggerations even of materialism are needful to
secure its being estimated aright. It was Cole-
ridge, I think, who, when asked what could be the
use of the stars if not inhabited, replied that it
might be to show that dirt was cheap. The theo-
logians, the metaphysicians, the moral philoso-
phers, and large classes of religionists have always
been prone to regard matter as merely "dirt,"
and to forget that it is the wonderful work and
glorious manifestation of God ; and so long as this
error is committed, the opposite error may serve
a providential purpose. Ignorance of physical
nature, or injustice to it, is fatal even to philo-
sophy and theology. There was very little ma-
terialism during the middle ages ; but at that
time, also, physical science languished and died,
and the philosophical theology which prevailed
dogmatised, in consequence, so confidently and
foolishly on the origin and nature of the universe
and its relations to the Creator, that the grandest
truths were discredited by being associated with
the most ridiculous blunders.

There is a prevalent notion that materialism is
at least a very definite theory which, whether true
or false, cannot be mistaken for any other. In
reality it is a general term which has many and
discordant applications, and which comprehends a
crowd of heterogeneous theories. There are sys-

42 Anti-Thcistic Theoj'ies.

terns which may with equal right be designated
materialistic or pantheistic, and even materialistic
or idealistic. The only kind of system of which
history supplies no record is one which would
answer truly to the name of materialism. The
name would naturally denote a theory which ex-
plains the universe by what is known as matter,
or by matter as known through ordinary observa-
tion or scientific investigation. There neither is,
however, nor ever has been, any such theory. It
is a universal characteristic of materialism that it
supposes matter to be more than it is known to be;
that it imaginatively exalts and glorifies matter
beyond what sense or science warrants. It always
attributes to matter eternity and self-existence ;
sometimes it supposes it to be likewise essentially
active ; sometimes it endows it with life, with sen-
sation, with volition, with intelligence. Systems
which agree in verbally representing matter as the
foundation and explanation of the universe, differ
enormously as to what matter is, but they all,
without exception, ascribe to matter properties of
which experience teaches us nothing,
f^ It is perhaps impossible to fix precisely where
the history of materialism begins. To say that it
is "as old but not older than philosophy," is to
say nothing, unless you say how old philosophy is.
But philosophy existed in union with religion long
before it existed in a state of independence, and

0'rigi?i of Materialism. 43

for anything we know to the contrary, may be as
old as human reason itself. Notwithstanding the
prevalence of the contrary opinion, there is evi-
dence that even the lowest forms of religion have
originated in a speculative impulse. They are not
mere embodiments of the feelings of fear, or love,
or dependence, but consist in great part of rude
speculations, strange fancies, as to the making and
the meaning of nature and of man. The ruder
tribes of men seem unable to conceive either of
mere matter or mere spirit ; they spiritualise mat-
ter and materialise spirit ; souls and gods are sup-
posed by them to be material beings, and material
things to have souls and divine powers ; they can-
not think of matter and spirit as separate exist-
ences. Fetichism, animism, animal - worship, na-
ture-worship, have all their root in this mental
incapacity. All these forms of religion may with
almost as much propriety be called materialistic
as the professedly materialistic theories of the
recent speculators who, in the name of science,
ascribe life and sense and other potencies even
to the ultimate elements of matter. The feeble
power of abstraction which characterises uncul-
tured man has always made him, to a consider-
able extent, a materialist. He has been unable
to think of mind and matter apart ; of a body
without spirit or spirit without body ; of na-
ture without God or God without nature. Man

44 Aiiti-TJieistic Theoi'ies.

has been unable until comparatively late times
either to raise or answer the question, Was mind
before matter or matter before mind ? The Jews
seem to have been the first nation raised above
such materialism, and raised also, in consequence,
above pantheism to a true theism. It is the Bible
which has impressed on the human mind the great
thought of the creation of matter by the will, the
word of God.

The rude religious materialism now referred to
is, of course, a very different thing from a specula-
tive anti-religious materialism, but it explains why,
as soon as speculation appeared and assumed an
anti- religious attitude, it should have presented
itself in the form of materialism. In spite of all
that has been said against speculation, however, it
is not the rule, it is only the exception, for it to be
anti-religious ; it is not the rule, but only the excep-
tion, for it to lead to materialism. The tendency of
speculation, of refined and disciplined reflection of
thought which seeks really to comprehend what it
has before it, is, if history may be credited, to get
beyond matter, not to rest in it. The history of
materialism impartially written is not a very bril-
liant one. Comparatively few of the world's great-
est thinkers have been adherents of this system.
Its advocates have often done it little credit.^

In China, more than three hundred years before

^ See Appendix V.

Chinese Materialism, 45

the Christian era, an avowedly atheistical materi-
alism was widely prevalent. It was the chief task
in life of one of the most celebrated Chinese philo-
sophers, Meng-tseu, better known in the West as
Mencius, to combat this doctrine, and the views
of man's duty and destiny which were based on
it. He believed it to have caused a vast amount
of harm to his country, and that no society could
long exist which entertained it. A few lines from
an essay of one of the men whose teaching he
strove to counteract will probably be sufficient to
convince you that he was not far wroncr. Yano-
Choo said, " Wherein people differ is the matter of
life ; wherein they agree is death. While they are
alive we have the distinctions of intelligence and
stupidity, honourableness and meanness ; when
they are dead we have so much rottenness de-
caying away, — this is the common lot. Yet intel-
ligence and stupidity, honourableness and mean-
ness, are not in one's power; neither is that
condition of putridity, decay, and utter disap-
pearance. A man's hfe is not in his own hands,
nor is his death ; his intelligence is not his own,
nor is his stupidity, nor his honourableness, nor
his meanness. All are born and all die ; — the in-
telligent and the stupid, the honourable and the
mean. At ten years old some die ; at a hundred
years old some die. The virtuous and the sage
die; the ruffian and the fool also die. Alive,

46 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

they were Yaou and Shun, the most virtuous of
men ; dead, they are so much rotten bone. AHve,
they were Klee and Chow, the most wicked of
men ; dead, they are so much rotten bone. Who
could know any difference betw^een their rotten
bones } While alive, therefore, let us hasten to
make the best of life. When about to die, let
us treat the thing with indifference and endure
it ; and seeking to accomphsh our departure, so
abandon ourselves to annihilation."

Plainer language than this there could not
be. The whole essay is of the same character
and tenor. Its author was avowedly without
God and without hope in the world. He thought
human beings were mere combinations of particles
of dust, and would dissolve into particles of dust
again. He saw that however differently men lived,
their common lot was death ; and he fancied that
after death there was nothing left but "rotten
bone." A man lives virtuously, but if he is un-
happy all through life, as the virtuous often are,
his virtue would seem, since there is no future
world, to have done him no good. You may
praise him after he is dead, but that is no more
to him than to the trunk of a tree or a clod of
earth. Or he may live what is called a vicious
life, but if he have thereby the joy of gratifying
his desires, any blame you may give him after he
is dead will not take away from the reality of his

Hindu Materialism. 47

enjoyment. Blame is to the bad man, after death,
like praise to the good man — as worthless as it is
to the trunk of a tree or a clod of earth. Fame,
therefore, according to Yang Choo, is but a phan-
tom, virtue is but a delusion, and enjoyment has
alone some reality and good in it. Hence he
advises men not to care for praise or blame, virtue
or vice, except as a means of enjoyment ; to seek
merel}^ to make themselves as happy as they can
while happiness is within their reach ; to eat and
drink, for to-morrow they die. That is one of the
oldest systems of ethical materialism and of ma-
terialistic ethics. It is a very simple theory, and
to the vast majority of men it will seem a very
consistent theory. A few exceptionally consti-
tuted natures may combine a materialistic creed
with generous and self-denying conduct, but the
ordinary man of all lands and ages will find in a
materialism which denies God and a future life the
justification of sensuality and selfishness.^

None of the greater systems of Hindu phil-
osophy can be properly classed as materialistic ;
but among the minor systems there is one — the
Charv^aka philosophy — closely akin to that just
described. It assumes that perception by the
senses is the only source of true knowledge. It
maintains that the four elements of earth, air, fire,
and water, are the original principles of all things,
^ See Appendix VI,

48 Anti-Theistic Theories.

and that they are eternal. It represents intel-
ligence as resulting from a modification of the
aggregate of these elements, when combined and
transformed into the human body, just as the
power of inebriation is produced by the mixing
of certain ingredients. The faculty of thought,
according to it, is destroyed when the elements
from which it arises are dissolved. There is no
soul apart from the body : the soul is only the
body distinguished by the attribute of intelligence.
The various phenomena of the world are produced
spontaneously from the inherent nature of things,
and there is nothing supernatural — no God, no
fate even, no other world, no final liberation, no
recompense for acts. Prosperity is heaven and
adversity is hell, and there is no other heaven or
hell. The so-called sacred books — the three Vedas
— were composed by rogues or buffoons. The
exercises of religion and the practices of asceticism
are merely a means of livelihood for men devoid
of intellect and manliness. The sole end — the
only reasonable end — of man is enjoyment : —

"While life remains let a man live happily, let him feed on ghee,
even though he runs in debt ;
When once the body becomes ashes, how^ can it ever return again ?"

That, so far as I know, is the only system of
thorough materialism among the philosophies of
India. And certainly, in one sense, it is as thor-
ough as can be imagined. It shows no reverence

Greek Materialism. 49

for any kind of authority or tradition — no defer-
ence to respectability or public opinion. It recoils
from no consequence of its principles. At the
same time, it is manifestly a very poor and ignoble
kind of philosophy. It is the theory of men who
wish to dispense with all thoughts of God and of
a moral government, in order that they may feel
free to indulore in a selfish and sensuous life.^

II.

Philosophy began its wonderful career in Greece
by attempting to resolve all the phenomena of
the universe into a single material first principle,
such as water, or air, or fire ; or rather, it began
by conjecturing how all things might have been
evolved from such a principle. And yet it was
not merely materialistic, for matter was supposed
to be filled by other than material powers — by
spontaneity, by life, by intelligence. The first sys-
tem of Greek materialism, properly so called, was
that wrought out by Leucippus, and especially
by Democritus, in the fi.fth_ century before Christ.
The materialism of the present day is substanti-
ally the materialism of Democritus. This explains
why some recent German writers, favourable to
materialism, have extolled Democritus as a spec-
ulative and scientific genius of the very highest

^ See Appendix VII.
D

50 Anti-TJieistic Theo7'ies.

order, equal or superior to Plato and Aristotle.
For such an opinion the fragmentary sentences
which are all that remain of his numerous works
supply no warrant. At the same time, Democritus
was undoubtedly a man of great knowledge for
the age in which he lived, a clear and consistent
if not very profound thinker, and endowed with
remarkable aptitudes for mathematical and phys-
ical investigation. There is, further, no reason to
question that the high reputation which he gained
for moral worth — for modesty, disinterestedness,
integrity, for cheerful wisdom, for love of truth —
was well merited. The views of moral life which
he inculcated are the very best that one can con-
ceive associated with materialistic and atheistic
principles. He held that the sovereign good of
man w^as not to be found in the pleasures of sense,
in wealth, in honours, or power — not in external
things, nor in what depends on accident or on
others — but in tranquillity of mind, in a well-
regulated, pure, and peaceful soul. There are
true and beautiful thoughts in his fragments on
veracity, on courage, on prudence, on justice, on
the restraint of passion, the regulation of desire,
respect for reason, obedience to law, &c.

Democritus explained the universe by means of
space and atoms — the empty and the full. The
atoms, infinite in number, moving in infinite space,
give rise to infinite worlds. These atoms are eter-

AtODiisni of Democritus. 51

nal, and they are imperishable. There is no real
creation and no real destruction ; nothing comes
from nothing, and what is ultimate in anything
never ceases to be ; what is called creation is
merely combination, what is called destruction is
merely separation. The quantity of matter in the
world, and consequently the quantity of force —
for force is merely matter in motion — can neither
be increased nor diminished, but must be ever
the same. The atoms, he further held, have in
themselves no qualitative differences, but merely
quantitative ; they differ from one another only
in shape, arrangement, and position. All the
apparently qualitative differences in objects are
due simply to the quantitative differences of the
atoms which compose them. Water differs from
iron merely because the atoms of the former are
smooth and round, and do not fit into but roll
over each other; while those of the latter are
jagged and uneven and densely packed together.
In thus resolving all qualitative differences into
quantitative differences, the system of Democritus
involved a distinct and marked advance over
Chinese and Hindu materialism, or any of the
previous Greek philosophies which had attempted
to explain the world by physical principles. The
soul Democritus regarded as only a body within
the body, made of more delicate atoms ; thought
as only a more refined and pure sensation ; and

52 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

sensations as the impressions produced by images
which emanated from external objects. ^

He could not, of course, overlook the obvious
question, Why do the atoms move, and how do
they so combine as to give rise to a world at once
so orderly and varied ? He answered that nothing
happened at random, but everything according to
law and necessity ; that the atoms were infinite in
number and endlessly diversified in form ; and
that in falling through boundless space they
dashed against each other, since the larger ones
moved more rapidly than the smaller ; and that,
rebounding and whirling about, they formed ag-
gregates, vortices, worlds, without number. He
thus sought to banish from nature every notion of
a final cause and supreme ordaining Mind, and to
substitute for them a purely mechanical, uncon-
seiQus, aimless necessity. He referred the popular
conceptions of Deity partly to an incapacity to
understand fully the phenomena of which we are
witnesses, and partly to the impressions occasioned
by atmospheric and stellar phenomena. He thus
laid the foundation and drew the plan of a sys-
tem of atheistical materialism which is sometimes
presented to us as the most important creation
of modern science.

A system like this manifestly contains in itself
the germs of its own contradiction and destruction.
It tends necessarily to sensationalism and scepti-

A toDiism of Dcmocritus. 5 3

cism, and both of these devour, as it were, the
mother which begat them. If matter be the sole
source and substance of the universe, sensation
must be due to the impression of matter on
matter, and thought must be but an elaboration
of sensation, with no truth or reality in it beyond
what it derives from sensation. But in that case
what do we know of matter } Nothing at all :
we know merely our own sensations of colour, of
hearing, of smell, &c., and conjecture, for some
mysterious reason or other, that these are the
results of material objects acting on a material
subject. Democritus saw this, — that there was
no heat or cold out of relation to feeling, no bitter
or sweet out of relation to the sense of taste, no
colour independent of the sense of sight, or sound
independent of that of hearing. He granted that
all that our senses inform us about things is
purely relative to the senses of the individual — is
not what things are in themselves, but what they
appear to be to the particular person whose senses
are affected. He supposed only space and the
atoms to be real. But what evidence had he as a
materialist and sensationalist for his atoms } None
of his senses could apprehend them; and although
sense was so little to be trusted, there was nothing
on his principles, and can be nothing on materi-
alistic principles, equally to be trusted, or, indeed,
to be trusted at all, apart from it. Thus Demo-

54 Anti-Theistic Theories.

critus was virtually affirming that there was all
truth in sensation, and that there was no truth
in it. No wonder that he said truth lay at the
bottom of a well and was hard to find. No
wonder that men came after him who said that
there was no such thing as truth ; that there
was nothing for reason save appearance and
opinion, and no higher law of life than worldly
. prudence.^

The speculations of Democritus, it cannot be
doubted, contributed not a little to the inaugura-
tion of the era of the Sophi.sts. The men who
are known in history under this designation are
now generally admitted to have been until re-
cently represented as even worse than they were.
They may certainly be credited with having ren-
dered service to logic, and still more to rhetoric
— with having awakened a critical and inquiring
spirit — and with having contributed very consid-
erably to the increase of ideas and the spread of
intellectual culture. Whatever merits, however,
we may thus assign to them, will not warrant us
to reverse or do more than unessentially modify
the verdict which history so long unhesitatingly
pronounced against them. They were not men
who sought or found, who believed in or loved
truth. Their fundamental principles, so far as
they had any, were that sense is the source of all

^ See Appendix VIII.

Greek A nti- Materialism. 55

thought— that man is the measure of all things
— that nothing is by nature true or false, good
or bad, but only by convention. It seemed to
Socrates and to Plato that these principles were
erroneous, and must involve in ruin, reason, virtue,
and religion, the individual soul and society ; and
they made it their mission in life to refute them,
and to prove that directly contrary principles are
to be held ; — that thought underlies sense — that
the soul is better than the body — that there are
for all men who would search for them, a truth and
goodness which are not individual and conven-
tional, but universal and eternal — that the search
for them is the prime duty of man — and that the
finding of them is his distinctive dignity and glory.
The idea which Anaxagoras had introduced into
Greek philosophy — the idea, that the order in
the universe could only be accounted for by the
working of an Eternal Reason — was welcomed
by Socrates, and shaped with admirable art into
the theistic argument which is most offensive to
materialism, — the design argument for the exist-
ence of God from the evidences of design in
nature, and especially in the animal frame. Plato
strove to show that all phenomena presupposed
eternal ideas, and that these gradually led up to
the Supreme Idea — the highest good — God. Aris-
totle was scarcely less opposed to materialism than
Plato, and in his theory of causes he constructed a

56 Anti-Theistic Theories.

fortress which all the forces of materialism have,
down to this day, assailed in vain. Unfortunately,
neither Plato nor Aristotle was able to raise him-
self to the sublime thought which seems to us so
simple— the thought of absolute creation, of crea-
tion out of nothing by an act of God's omnipotent
will. Both granted to matter a certain inde-
pendence of God ; both believed it to be in itself
uncreated. Both failed, in consequence, to gain
a complete and decisive victory over materialism.
Perhaps, also, their philosophies were too large
and many-sided to find a lodgment in ordinary
minds. Certain it is that they were followed by
greatly inferior systems, wdiich, owing in part, per-
haps, to their very superficiality and narrowness,
acquired no small popularity.

One of these systems was substantially just the
philosophy of Democritus revived and developed.
Epjcurus, its author, was by no means what he
boasted himself to be — a " self-taught man," an
original thinker — but he had the qualities which en-
abled him to render his views widely popular. In
his lifetime he gathered around him multitudes of
friends. His memory was cherished by his followers
with extraordinary veneration ; in fact, they paid
to him the same sort of idolatrous homage which
Comte yielded to Madame Clothilde de Vaux, J.
S. Mill to his wife, and certain Comtists to their
master. Worship is natural to man, and when cut

Epicurean Materialism. 57

off from the true object of his worship he will
lavish his affections on objects unworthy of them. ;
The philosophy of Epicurus was materialism in
the most finished form which it acquired in the
ancient world. It had the great good fortune also
to find in the Roman poet Lucretius an expositor
of marvellous genius — the brightest star by far
in the constellation of materialists. The atomic /
materialism of the present day is still substantial-
ly the materialism which Epicurus and Lucretius
propounded. It seems necessary, therefore, and
may not be without present interest, to consider
briefly the principles and pretensions of the mate-
rialism maintained by the famous Greek philoso-
pher and the still more famous Roman poet. ^•

It is a theory, I may remark, which originated
in a practical motive. Epicurus avowedly did not
seek truth for truth's sake. He sought it, and
taught others to seek it, only so far as it appeared
to be conducive to happiness. Truth, like virtue, '
was in his eyes, and in the eyes of his followers, to
be cultivated merely as a means of avoiding pain
and procuring pleasure. The Epicureans sought,
therefore, an explanation of the universe which
would free men from religious fears, and from re-
ligious beliefs so far as these caused fear. Such
an explanation they found in the theory of De-
mocritus, and hence they adopted it. The great
reason why Lucretius glories in the Epicurean

58 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

theory is, that it emancipates the mind from all
dread of the Divine anger, and all belief in a
future world. Now, it may fairly be doubted,
I think, if a system which springs from such
a motive can be other than very defective. I
errant that there was considerable excuse for the
motive in the evils which superstition had caused,
and which Lucretius has so powerfully described.
In judging either Epicurus or Lucretius, it would
be most unjust and uncharitable to forget that
the religion with which they were familiar was so
fearfully corrupt and degrading as naturally to
occasion disbelief in, and aversion to, all religion.
But none the less is it true that those whose chief
interest in the study of nature is the hope of find-
ing the means of destroying or dispelling religion
are almost certain to fall into grave mistakes in
their attempts to explain nature. The Epicureans
did so. At the same time, the motive, such as it
w^as, induced them to study nature more intensely
than they would otherwise have done, or than
the rest of their contemporaries did ; and physical
science profited from this in no small measure.
With all its defects the atomic doctrine is the
most valuable theory, falling within the sphere
of physical science, which modern times have in-
herited from antiquity. That all physical things
at least may be resolved into atomic elements ;
that these elements can neither be created nor

Epicurean Mater ialisvu 59

destroyed, neither increased nor diminished in
number, by natural forces ; that matter may con-
sequently change endlessly in form and force in
direction, but that the quantity of matter and the
amount of force in the world are always the same, —
are scientific conceptions so grand that the m.odern
world is apt to believe that the ancient world could
not have possessed them. There can be no doubt,
however, that all these ideas are more than two
thousand years old. They lay at the very founda-
tion of the atomic philosophy. All that the most
recent science has done in regard to them has been
to verify them in particular instances by exact
experiments. Modern men of science are apt to
imagine that this is really for the first time to have
established them. But this is not the case. No
general truth can be established by experiment, or
be seen by the eye or touched by the hand. It can
only be reached by thought, and thought reached
all the general truths in question really, although
vaguely, very long ago. I cannot admit that there
is an essential difference even in method between
the ancient and the modern atomists. To say that
the former assumed their theory, and unfolded its
applications by reasoning down from it, and that
the latter reverse the process and reason up to
it by induction, is thoroughly inaccurate. The
ancients proceeded so far by induction ; it is only
so far that the moderns can proceed by it.

6o Anti'llicistic Theories.

According to the theory we are considering, the
ultimate elements of things are body and space —
the atom and the void. Space is limitless, im-
measurable ; the gleaming thunderbolt speeding
through it for ever would fail to traverse it, or
even in the least to lessen what of it remained.
The atoms are numberless, ungenerated, infran-
gible, unchangeable, indestructible. Their only
qualities are form, magnitude, and density ; and
their variations in these respects account for the
diverse qualities in the diverse objects of the
universe. This theory ought at once to raise the
questions, — What proof is there that these indivis-
ible atoms are really ultimate in any other sense
than that they are the primary constituents of
body ? What evidence is there that they are self-
existent } Why should reason stop with them and
seek no explanation of them ? How is it that they
account not only for other things but for them-
selves ? But to these questions we get no rational
replies. These are questions which materialism
has never dared fairly to confront and grapple
with. It has always shown, on the contrary, by
its evasion of them, a certain. vague and confused
consciousness that there is something unsound and
insecure at its very basis. Materialism, which is
so bold in hypothetical explanations of things, is
strangely timid in self-criticism.

Epicurean materialism, like all materialism.

Epicurean Materialism. 6i

affirms matter to be eternal ; but when you seek
a reason for the assertion, you can find none save
that it is impossible something should come from
nothing. That is to say. Epicurean materialism,
like all materialism, starts with an illegitimate
application of the principle of causality, or of its
axiomatic expression, — " Nothing which once was
not could ever of itself come into being." By the
great body of thoughtful men, both in ancient and
modern times, this has been taken to mean merely
that nothing can be produced without an adequate
cause ; that every change demands a full explana-
tion ; that every phenomenon must have a suffici-
ent ground. Epicurus, Lucretius, and materialists
in general, assume it to mean that, since matter is,
matter must always have been ; that matter could
never have been created ; that the world was un-
caused. If the assumption be a mere assumption
— if no reason be given for this extraordinary in-
terpretation— it is a most inexcusable procedure.
Now, vast as the literature of materialism is, you
will search it through in vain, from the fragments
of Democritus to the last edition of Biichner, for
a single reason, a single argument, to justify this
manifest begging of the whole question. Instead,
you will find only poetical and rhetorical reitera-
tions of the assumption itself, diffuse assertions of
the eternity, indestructibility, and self-existence of
matter. Materialism thus starts with an irrational

62 Anti-TJicistic llicories.

assumption, the true character of which it endeav;:
ours to conceal by appealing merely to the ima-
gination.

It was not enough, however, for the purpose
which the atomic atheists had in view that they
should merely suppose the atoms to be eternal. It
was further necessary for them to suppose that the
atoms, although without colour or any property
perceptible to the senses, had every variety of
shape, and the particular sizes, required to enable
them to compose the vast variety of things in the
universe. If they had all been alike, they could,
according to the admission of the atomists them-
selves, have formed no universe. But, curiously
enough, while admitting that they did not see that
they were bound to ask and to explain how the
atoms came to be unlike ; how some of them came
to be smooth and round, others to be cubical, others
to be hooked and jagged, &c. ; and, in a word, how
they all came to be just so shaped as to be able
collectively to constitute an orderly and magnifi-
cent universe. Still more curiously, all materialism
down to this day has been afflicted with the same
blindness. My belief is, that if it were not thus
blind it would die. The light would kill it. It
would see that the atoms on which it theorised
could not be really ultimate, and implied the
power and wisdom of God.

The Epicurean materialists found that, even

Epicurean Materialism. ^i

when they had imagined their atoms to be eternal,
and to be endowed with suitable shapes, their
hypothesis would not work. They found that
they required to put something more into their
atoms before they could get a universe from them.
For they had to ask themselves, How do the
atoms ever meet and combine ? It is obvious
that if they all fall in straight lines, and with
the same rapidity, they can never meet. Hence
Democritus said that the larger ones move faster
than the smaller ones, and that this is the cause
of their collision and combination. But, objected
Aristotle, that cannot be the case in a perfect
vacuum where no resistance whatever is offered to
the fall of bodies, whether large or small. There
all bodies must fall with equal rapidity. The
Epicureans admitted that this objection was fatal
to the atomic theory as presented by Democritus.
Still, as they denied any intelligent First Cause,
they had to devise some hypothesis of the contact
and aggregation of the atoms. They imagined,
accordingly, a small deviation of the atoms from
a straight line. But how can this deviation be
produced } Not from without the atoms, since
nothing but void space is supposed to be with-
out them, and all divine or supernatural interpo-
sition is expressly rejected. The Epicureans had
therefore no other resource than to hold that the
atoms were endowed with a certain spontaneity,

54 Anti-Thcisiic Theories.

and deviated from the straight line of their own
accord ; they ascribed to them a slight measure of
freewill. They have often been ridiculed for this,
and, it cannot be denied, with justice ; but it is also
obvious that there was scarcely any other hypo-
thesis for them to adopt, so long as they adhered
to their atheism and materialism.

In even a brief and general estimate of the
Epicurean system, this notion, that " when bodies
fall sheer down through empty space by their own
weights, at quite uncertain times and spots they
swerve a little, yet only the least possible, from
their course," must have due stress laid on it. For
it was no accessory or subordinate feature of the
Epicurean theory, but what was most distinctiye
as well as original in it ; what differentiated it
from the allied doctrine of Democritus on the one
hand, and from the antagonistic doctrine of the
Stoics on the other. It was precisely by means
of this conception that Epicurus and Lucretius
fancied they escaped the necessity of believing
either in the creative and providential action of
God, or in the sway of fate, — the two beliefs
which seemed to them to be the great enemies
of mental peace.

The hypothesis of a slight power of deviation in
the atoms was rested on two reasons. In the first
place, it was needed to explain the formation of
the universe without the intervention of a super-

Epicurean Materialism. 65

natural cause. The formation of the universe
supposed collision of the atoms. But variety of
shape and even difference of weight failed to
account for this. If empty space offers no resist-
ance to anything in any direction at any time, all
things, whatever their weight, must move through
it with equal velocity. If they so move, however,
in perfectly parallel lines, they must move, for ever,
without clashing against one another, and con-
sequently without producing varied motions and
compound bodies. Thus nature never would have
formed anything. How, then, could aught have
been produced 1 Only by a certain freedom of
action in nature, or by the free action, the inter-
vention, of a Being above nature. But it was a
foregone conclusion with Epicurus and Lucretius,
just as it is with a host of modern scientific men,
that they would not seek for anything above
nature — that they would not believe there could
be anything beyond matter. They were deter-
mined to account for everything entirely by
natural principles, by material primordia. There-
fore they were compelled to ascribe contingency to
nature, spontaneity to matter. At the same time
they had a respect for facts, and therefore attri-
buted to nature as little contingency, to matter as
little spontaneity, as possible. The atoms must
swerve a little, and yet so very little, that neither
they nor the bodies composed of them can be

E

66 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

described as moving " slantingly " or " obliquely,"
since this the reality would refute. The only
deviations possible must be imperceptible^ de-
viations. It has been said that tKe^'Epicureans, by
ascribing to atoms the power of deviation, intro-
duced a quite incalculable element into their
system. But they had foreseen the objection, and
also that they could return to it a twofold answer,
— namely, first, that the deviations were impercep-
tible, leaving all that was perceptible calculable,
so that there could be nowhere any miracle or
interruption of natural action ; and secondly, that
although it could not be determined when and
where an atom would act in the way of deviation,
once it had so acted all the results could be
determined — or, in other words, that spontaneity
and law, contingency and calculation, were not
incompatible. Much might, perhaps, be said in
defence of these answers. The weakness of the
hypothesis lay less at this point than in ignoring
the consideration that if the atoms possessed the
power of deviation that was itself a fact to be
accounted for. Whence came the countless hosts
of atoms to be all provided with so remarkable a
characteristic } Some one ground or cause was
demanded for their all agreeing in this curious and
useful peculiarity. Such single ground or cause
could only be a something above and beyond
themselves. The feeble wills with which the

Epicurean Materialisvi. 6/

atoms were supposed to be endowed implied a
mighty supernatural will as their source. For not
recognising this single ultimate will Epicurus and
Lucretius had no relevant reason. They stopped
short at the atoms in sheer wilfulness ; they saw
nothing beyond them because they had before-
hand determined on no account to look beyond
them.

In the second place, the hypothesis of a certain
degree of spontaneity in the atoms recommended
itself to the Epicureans as a warrant for rejecting
fatalism, and as an explanation of free will in living
things. Epicurus pronounced the fatalism of the
physicists and philosophers even more disquieting
and discouraging than superstition ; the goodwill
of the gods might be gained by honouring them,
but there are no means by which fate can be
controlled. He and his followers accepted free-
will in man as a fact fully guaranteed to them by
consciousness and observation. But if there be
freewill in man there must be freewill elsewhere
to account for it ; only nothing can come from
nothing ; only necessity from necessity. If, then,
there be no Being above nature, and all must be
explained from nature, freewill must have its
cause in nature, and nature cannot be wholly
subject to necessity. "If all motion is ever linked
together, and a new motion ever springs from
another in a fixed order, and first beginnings do

68 Anti-Theisiic Theories.

not by swerving make some commencement of
motion to break through the decrees of fate, that
cause follow not cause from everlasting, whence
have all living creatures here on earth, whence, I
ask, has been wrested from the fates the power
by which we go forward whither the will leads
each, by which likewise we change the direction
of our motions neither at a fixed time nor fixed
place, but when and where the mind itself has
prompted ? " The Roman poet could give to this
question of his own no more rational answer on
materialistic principles than the one which has been
mentioned. If the materialist maintain that there
is nothing but necessity in nature, he must main-
tain also that there is nothing but necessity in
man. If he admit that there is spontaneity or
freedom in man, he must admit that it is inherent
likewise in nature. Necessity in both nature and
man, or freedom in both, is the only reasonable
alternative. The effort to deduce truly voluntary
movements from purely mechanical causes is
nonsensical. But when Epicurus and Lucretius
followed reason so far, why did they not follow it
farther, and pack reason as well as will into their
atoms, and emotion and conscience too, and so
endow each atom with a complete mind t They
might at least have anticipated Professor Clifford,
and told us that " a moving molecule of inorganic
matter possesses a small piece of mind-stuff."

Epicurean Mateyialisnt. 69

Having conformed their atoms to the needs of
their system, the Epicureans proceeded to explain
how the universe was formed ; how from the
boundless mass of matter, heaven, and earth, and
ocean, sun and moon, rose in nice order. The
atoms, so we are told, "jostling about of their own
accord, in infinite modes, were often brought to-
gether confusedly, irregularly, and to no purpose,
but at length they successfully coalesced ; at least,
such of them as were thrown together suddenly
became, in succession, the beginnings of great
things — as earth, and air, and sea, and heaven."
With magnificent breadth of conception, and often
with genuine scientific insight, Lucretius, follow-
ing the guidance of Epicurus, has described how,
in obedience to mechanical laws, from atoms of
"solid singleness," inorganic matter assumed its
various forms and organic nature passed through
its manifold stages ; what living creatures issued
from the earth ; how speech was invented ; how
society originated and governments were insti-
tuted ; how civilisation commenced ; and in what
ways religion gained an entry into men's hearts.
He thoroughly appreciated the significance of the
doctrine of evolution in the system of materialism.
The development theory has been ingeniously
improved at many particular points in recent
times, but it has not been widened in range. It
was just as comprehensive in the hands of Lucre-

70 Anti-TJieistic TJieorics.

tius as it is in those of Herbert Spencer. Its aim
and method are still the same ; its problems are
the same ; its principles of solution are the same ;
the solutions themselves are often the same. I
state this as a fact, not as a reproach; for I do not
object to the development theory in itself, but
only to it in association with atheism. Atheism
has done much to discredit it ; it has contributed
nothing to the proof of atheism.

The Epicurean materialists refused to recognise
anywhere the traces of a creative or governing
Intelligence. The mechanical explanation which
they gave of the formation of things seemed to
them to preclude the view that aught was effected
by Divine power or wisdom. Like their successors
in modern times, they regarded efficient causes as
incompatible with final causes ; and, like them
also, they dwelt in confirmation of their opinion
on the alleged defects of nature, blaming the
arrangements of the heavens and the earth with
the same vehemence and narrowness which have
become so familiar to us of late. And yet they
were not unwilling to admit the existence of the
gods worshipped by the people, if conceived of as
only a sort of etherealised men, utterly uncon-
nected with the world and its affairs. " Beware,"
says Epicurus, " of attributing the revolutions of
the heaven, and eclipses, and the rising and setting
of starSj either to the original contrivance or con-

Epiawean Materialism. j i

tinued regulation of a Divine Being. For business,
and cares, and anger, and benevolence, are not
accordant with happiness, but arise from weak-
ness, and fear, and dependence on others.' The
Epicureans, in fact, conceived of the gods as ideal
Epicureans — as beings serenely happy, without
care, occupation, or sorrow.

To belief in the immortality of the soul they
offered strenuous opposition. It was one of the
prime recommendations of materialism in their
eyes, that it supplied them with arms to combat
this belief They laboured to prove the soul ma-
terial in order that they might infer it to be mortal,
and with such diligence that scarcely a plausible
argument seems to have escaped them. They
could not, they felt, emancipate men from fear
of future retribution otherwise than by persuading
them that there was no future to fear — that death
was an eternal sleep. Therefore they taught that
"the nature of the mind cannot come into being
alone without the body, nor exist far away from
sinews and blood ; " that " death concerns us not
a jot, since the nature of the mind is proved to
be mortal ; " that " death is nothing to us, for that
which is dissolved is devoid of sensation, and that
which is devoid of sensation is nothing to us."
All the consolation which Lucretius can offer to
the heart shrinking at the prospect of death, is the
reflection that it will escape the ills of life.

^2 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

" But thy dear home shall never greet thee more !
No more the best of wives ! thy babes beloved,
Whose haste half met thee, emulous to snatch
The dulcet kiss that roused thy secret soul,
Again shall never hasten! nor thine arm,
With deeds heroic, guard thy country's weal !
' O mournful, mournful fate ! ' thy friends exclaim
' One envious hour of these invalued joys
Robs thee for ever ! ' But they add not here,
'It robs thee, too, of all desire of joy'—
A truth once uttered, that the mind would free
From every dread and trouble. ' Thou art safe !
The sleep of death protects thee, and secures
From all the outnumbered woes of mortal life.' "

It is strange that a thoughtful mind — that a
susceptible heart — that a man of poetic genius —
could for a moment have deluded himself with the
fancy that humanity was to be comforted in its
sorrows, or strengthened for its duties, by a notion
like this. No human being can be profited by
being told that he will die as the brute dieth ; that
death will free him from pain and fear only by
robbing him of all joy and love. But such is the
only gospel which materialism has to offer. The
system of which the first word is, In the beginning
there was nothing except space and atoms, has for
rits last word. Eternal Death ; as the system of
which the first word is. In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth, has for its last
word, Eternal Life. What man who has a mind
to think can hesitate to choose between Eternal
Reason and Eternal Unreason } What man who

Epicurean Materialism. 73

/has a heart to feel can hesitate to choose between
^Eternal Life and Eternal Death ? ^

Yet there are those who hesitate to choose ; and
there are those who choose wrongly. Much may
be said in excuse of those who thus doubted and
erred in pagan Greece and Rome. The only re-
ligions with which they were acquainted gave the
most inconsistent and perverted views, both of
Deity and of the world to come. If men in their
abhorrence of these religions unhappily rejected
all religion, we must pity them even more than we
condemn them. But we live in a later and more
favoured age, when God has been clearly revealed
in the beauty of holiness and love, and when life
and immortality have been brought to light. A
higher good than the greatest of Greek or Roman
sages ever longed for has been placed within the
reach of the humblest, the poorest the least in-
structed. The way has been made plain by which
we may be freed from fear of death, and from fear
of all that lies beyond death. We can have no
excuse for preferring death to life. Eternal death
ought to be no bribe to ns. Light has come into
the world. Let us not be among those who choose
darkness rather than light.

^ See Appendix IX.

74 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

LECTURE III.

MODERN MATERIALISM.

In the middle ages there was little physical science
and almost no materialism. This was not be-
cause there were few great minds or little mental
activity in those ages, but because the human in-
tellect was then almost exclusively occupied with
religion and theology. Christianity rested on the
belief that there was a God, the Creator of the
universe and the Father of spirits, who had in the
fulness of time made a special and perfect revela-
tion of His character and will in Jesus Christ.
Before the light and power of this belief, ancient
materialism, like ancient polytheism, faded and
withered away. The Christian Church in its earli-
est days had to battle with heathenism and Juda-
ism, open and avowed, or with suppressed tend-
encies towards both, expressing themselves in the
form of heresy. It had neither the time nor the
inclination to busy itself directly with theories

Materialism in the Mieldle Ages. 75

which it felt confident of being able to destroy by
simply propagating itself. The Christian Fathers,
down to the fall of the Roman empire, had their
energies fully occupied in the defence of funda-
mental truths of religion, and especially of those
involved in the great doctrine of the Trinity. The
schoolmen sought to elaborate the faith which they
had inherited into a comprehensive philosophy.
Scholasticism was essentially the union, or, per-
haps, rather the fusion of theology and philosophy.
It proceeded on the assumption that there are not
two studies, one of philosophy and the other of
religion, but that true philosophy is true religion,
and true religion is true philosophy. A theologi-
cal philosophy was alone possible in the middle
ages, and the widespread and intense interest felt
in it shows how well adapted it was to meet the
desires of men in those times. Medieval specu-
lation was, as a whole, theistic and Christian; it
was, as a whole, an effort to comprehend as well
as to apprehend Christian truth. Even w^hen
not so it might be pantheistic, but it was not
materialistic. Mohammedanism, although it was
not found to be incompatible w^ith the culture
of physical science, was no less hostile to ma-
terialism than Christianity. Thus for centuries
materialism had almost no existence, almost no
history.^

^ See Appendix X.

^6 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

With the downfall of scholasticism and the
emancipation of the mind from ecclesiastical
authority, materialistic tendencies began to mani-
fest themselves; but it is late even in modern
times before we reach a completely materialistic
system. Lord Bacon ranked Democritus higher
than Aristotle, but he was no materialist ; he
simply regarded the atomic hypothesis as lumin-
ous and fruitful.

" I had rather," he wrote, "believe all the fables in
the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than
that this universal frame is without Mind ; and
therefore, God never wrought miracles to convince
atheism, because His ordinary works convince it.
It is true, a little philosophy inclineth man's
mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bring-
eth men's minds about to religion ; for while the
mind of man looketh upon the second causes
scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go
no farther; but when it beholdeth the chain of
them confederate and linked together, it must
needs fly to Providence and Deity. Nay, even
that school which is most accused of atheism doth
most demonstrate religion — that is the school of
Leucippus, and Democritus, and Epicurus ; for it is
a thousand times more credible, that four mutable
elements and one immutable fifth essence, duly
and eternally placed, need no God, than that an
army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced.

Materialism in England. yy

should have produced this order and beauty
without a Divine Marshal."

Gassendi, a dignitary of the Roman Catholic
Church, a contemporary and friend yet opponent
of Descartes, laboured to present the life and the
doctrines of Epicurus in the most favourable light.
He endeavoured to prove that all physical pheno-
mena might" be accounted for by the vacuum and
atoms, and referred to mathematical and mechan-
ical laws. He rejected, however, all Epicurean
tenets which seemed to him inconsistent with
Christian truth. He maintained God to be the
Creator of the atoms, the first cause and ultimate
explanation of all things. Some of his contempo-
raries insinuated doubts as to the sincerity of his
religious professions, and some of the historians
of philosophy have repeated them, but they are
wholly unsupported by evidence, and quite incon-
sistent with our general knowledge of the high
personal character of the man.

Among his friends was the famous Thomas
Hobbes. He was, perhaps, more of a materialist
not only than any man of his generation, but than
any writer to be met with in literature until we
come down to the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury. He held that w^e can only reason where
we can add and subtract, combine and divide.
But where is that .? Only where there is what
will compound -and divide, only where there are

yS Anti-Theistic Theories.

bodies and bodily properties, since there is no
place for composition or division, no capacity of
more or less, in spirit. The consequence is plain,
— there can be no science, no philosophy of spirit.
Spirit even as finite is beyond comprehension,
beyond the range of experiment and sense, and
therefore beyond reasoning and beyond science ;
and still more is it so with Spirit as infinite,
eternal, ingenerable, incomprehensible, that is with
the doctrine of God or Theology. We have here
a narrow notion of the nature of reasoning, and
then a notion of its object made equally narrow
to suit it. The reduction of reasoning to the pro-
cesses of addition and subtraction, and the denial
that philosophy can be conversant about anything
but body and bodily properties, depend on each
other, but are both errors. Philosophy as universal
science has a right to extend wherever truth is
attainable by reason. Is spiritual truth attainable
through reason } Hobbes answered that it was not —
that only truth about bodies was attainable. This,
however, he forgot to prove. In consequence of
assuming it, he represented man as capable of reli-
gion only through inspiration, tradition, authority,
apart from and independent of reason, which knows
not and cannot know God truly. Religion is thus a
thing which cannot be proved true; which must be
accepted on some other ground than that of truth.
Philosophy, then, according to Hobbes, is con-

Materialism in England. 79

versant only with bodies and their properties.* It [
is the sum of human knowledge so far as reasoned
about bodies. He refers all thought to sensation,
and all sensation to matter and motion, sense
being simply motion in the organs and interior
parts of man's body, caused by external objects
pressing either immediately or mediately the organ
proper to each sense. The pressure, he holds,
when continued by the mediation of the nerves,
and other strings and membranes of the body to
the brain, causes there a resistance or counter-
pressure which, because outward, seems to be
some matter without, and consists as to the eye
in a light or colour, to the ear in a sound, to the
nostril in an odour, to the tongue and palate in a
savour, and to the rest of the body in heat, cold,
hardness, softness, and such other qualities as we
discern by feehng ; and when the action of an
object is continued from the eyes, ears, and other
organs to the heart, the real effect there is nothing
but motion or endeavour, and the appearance or
sense of that motion is delight or trouble of mind,
pleasure or pain. He thus resolves mind into mat-
ter, thought and feeling into mechanical action.

And yet Hobbes was not the sort of man to
make a mere materialist. The materialist must
not think. If he think he will ask himself what
matter is, and that is enough to break the sway
of matter. Now Hobbes was a thinker. He

So Anti-TJieistic Theories.

accordingly put to himself the question, What is
matter? The result was, that he found matter
in the materialist sense virtually to vanish. He
found that we know nothing of matter in itself;
that what we know is what he calls " the seeming,"
" the apparition," " the phenomenon ; " that colour
is just what is seen, sound just what is heard, but
not inherent qualities of objects independent of
seeing and hearing ; that the matter which he
supposed to cause by its motions in our senses
these and other perceptions of the material world
we cannot see, hear, or apprehend by any sense.
No human sense has ever laid hold of it, or can
describe a single quality it possesses. It is some-
thing utterly mysterious and unknown. Hobbes
confessed all this. What right, then, had he to
say that this mysterious matter was the substance
and explanation of the world .'' None at all. Nay,
had he been consistent he would have refused
wholly to admit its existence. He would have
said it was useless and unprovable. He would
have been an idealist.

Besides, while Hobbes excluded religion from
the sphere of what can be proved, he accepted it
as matter of faith. He severed it from reason to
rest it on authority. And in thus denying theo-
logy to be rational knowledge he did no more
than Descartes and little more than Bacon, whose
principles did not so logically lead to this issue as

Materialism in England. 8i

his. These three thinkers all referred theology
and philosophy to entirely distinct sources. They
represented the one as having nothing to do with
the other ; as having each an authority of its own ;
as having each a province in which for the other
to enter is an act of usurpation. They drew the
sharpest separation between reason and faith,
philosophy and religion. They sought to save the
one from the possibility of antagonism with the
other, by describing them as quite unconnected in
their principles, processes, and character. This
was a reaction from the scholastic dogmatism
which had ignored their real distinctions and en-
deavoured to make all science theological and all
theology strict science. Hobbes professed himself
to be an orthodox English Churchman. We have?
certainly no warrant to charge him with atheism.

The materialism even of Hobbes was thus in-
complete. But no system of materialism more
complete than his appeared in Great Britian until
very recent times. When we remember the moral
condition of the nation from the restoration of
the Stuart dynasty in 1660 to the close of the
eighteenth century, how low the general tone of
spiritual life was throughout the whole period, how
corrupt and profligate at certain dates, we can
feel no surprise that numerous works were pub-
lished in advocacy of materialistic tenets. The
remarkable fact is one which our historians of

F

82 Anti-Theistic Theories.

literature and philosophy have not attempted to
explain — namely, that the authors of none of these
works should have been thorough materialists. He
is, of course, a very incomplete materialist who
admits the necessity of a God to account for
matter. But English materialism throughout the
whole period specified was of this timid character.
The materialism of Coward and of Dodwell, of
: Hartley and of Priestley, was limited to the spirit-
(j uahty of the soul. What materialism there was
in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, it must be added, was triumphantly
answered. The refutations of materialism were
not only far more numerous than the defences of
it, but also, as a rule, much abler. Cudworth and
More, Newton and Boyle, Clarke and Sherlock
and Butler, headed a host of eminent men who
took the field on the right side, and drove the
materialists from every position which they ven-
tured to take up. The history of materialism in
England is the reverse of brilliant.

It was only when transplanted from England to
I France, in the generation before the Revolution,
\ that materialism grew up to maturity. A variety
of causes which have been often traced, and which
it is unnecessary in this rapid survey to specify,
had there prepared a soil suitable for its recep-
tion. And yet comparatively few of the philoso-
phers popular in that sceptical and corrupt age

Materialism in France. 83

had the hardihood to advocate it in its atheistical
form. Voltaire despised it as sheer stupidity.
Rousseau hated it with all his heart. .Cpndillac
argued against it with conviction and ability. It
was only after he had drifted through various
stages of deism and pantheism that Duierot settled
in materialistic atheism. The adherents of this
system did not become numerous until close on
the eve of the Revolution. The men of this
second generation who devoted themselves to its
advocacy were fanatically zealous in its behalf; but
they were also wholly destitute of originality, or
even ingenuity, and without literary talent of any
kind. Perhaps the best representatives of French
materialism in the eighteenth century were La
Mettrje andj/on Holbach.^

The physician La Mettrie, in his ' Natural His-
tory of the SouT (1745), his 'Man Machine'
(1748), and other works, was the first frankly
to declare himself a materialist. He was little
thought of in his own day as a man, a physician,
or a philosopher. It is characteristic of ours, how-
ever, that within the last few years several authors
— Assezat and Quepat in France, Lange and Du
Bois-Reymond in Germany — should have tried to
rehabilitate him, as it is called, — to prove that he
was a most excellent person, better skilled in
medicine than the rest of his profession, and an

1 See Appendix XL

84 Anti-Theistic Theories,

original philosophical genius. I confess, I think,

they could not have been less profitably occu-

j pied. To represent La Mettrie as either a man of

I much moral worth or of much talent is to falsify

history.

He does not absolutely deny that there is a
God. It shows the mental calibre of the man
that he should, in one sentence, say that it is very
probable there may be a God, and then, in those
which immediately follow, that there are no grounds
for believing in the existence of God — that even
if there be a God, there is no need for us to have
any religion — and that it is foolish to trouble our-
selves as to whether there is a God or not. In
one page he affirms that it is perfectly indifferent
to our happiness whether God does or does not
exist, and a few pages further on he is pleased to
inform us that the world will never be happy till
atheism is universal. It did not occur to him that
although both of these assertions might very well
be false, they certainly could not both be true.
The reason which he gave for the opinion that the
world could not be happy until atheism was uni-
versal was, that only then would religious wars
and strifes cease. Well, of course, if there were
no religion people could not fight about it. But,
obviously, they might still fight about other things,
and even fight about them more frequently and
ignobly than they do at present, just because of

Materialism in France. 85

the absence of religion. Dogs have no rch'gion,
but they quarrel over a bone. Take away from
man all interests and motives higher than those
of a beast, and you do not thereby secure that
he will be peaceable ; on the contrary, you insure
that he will quarrel as a beast and not as a man.

La Mettrie denies that there is much difference
between man and beast. He thought the higher
apes more closely related to human beings than
most Darwinians even would admit them to be.
He was anxious that they should be learned the
use of language by Amman's method of instruct-
ing the deaf and dumb, and hoped that mankind
would thus receive a numerous and valuable addi-
tion to their ranks. Any superiority which he
admitted man to have over them — it was very
little — he attributed wholly to the better organisa-
tion of his brain and to the education which he
received. The brain, he held, was the soul — the
part of the body which thinks — a part endowed
with fibres of thinking, just as the legs have
muscles of motion. Of course, death, which de-
stroys the rest of the body, destroys the brain —
the so-called soul. When death comes the farce
of human life is played out. In consistency with
these views he represented pleasure — sensuous
pleasure — as the chief end of life. He excused
vices on the ground that they are organic diseases,
and that man cannot control himself. He jeers

86 Anti-Theistic Theories.

at modesty and chastity, at love and friendship.
He is often coarse and cynical. This is the man
who, the recent writers I have mentioned com-
plain, has hitherto not had justice done to him.
It would have been a wiser and truer charity in
them if they had left his memory in the obscurity
which befits it.^

Von Holbach was a German baron settled in
i Paris — rich, kind-hearted, and generous ; well read,
especially in physical science ; with considerable
intellect of a heavy kind ; — the very centre, how-
j: ever, of the infidelity collected in the French
[ capital, as he kept open house, and gave the
' philosophers excellent entertainment, with perfect
freedom to ventilate at his table the wildest and
profanest of their theories. He was undoubtedly
the chief author of that notorious work which has
I been called the Bible of atheistical materialism—
I the ' System of Nature.' It appeared mviTSi^"^^
bore two falsehoods on its title-page : it professed
to be written by a M. de Mirabaud, a deceased
secretary of the Academy, who had had nothing
to do with its composition ; and it professed to be
published at London, whereas it was really pub-
lished at Amsterdam. Its style is at once de-
clamatory and dreary ; but it has qualities which
render it a favourite instrument of atheistical
propagandism. It is inspired by an honest fan-

^ See Appendix XII.

Materialism in France. 87

aticism. Its author is always terribly in earnest
— sometimes, it must be confessed, ludicrously so.
He never betrays any signs of want of confidence
in his own conclusions. His generalisations are
frequently imposing. His argumentation is often
not wanting in acuteness, subtilty, or plausibility.
The book which perplexed for a time the mind
of Chalmers, has, doubtless, fatally perverted the
judgment of many an average intellect.

A distinctive feature of the work is the explicit-
ness with which the idea of God is assailed — with
which His existence is denied. Epicurus and
Lucretius, even, in spite of their anxiety to throw
off the yoke of religion, did not refuse to believe
that there were gods, but only that they acted
on the world or were interested in human affairs.
All the materialists of England stopped short of
a denial of the Divine Existence. La Mettrie
himself affirmed the probability of the Divine
Existence, although he proceeded forthwith to
show its non - probability. In the 'System of
Nature' there is no compromise or indecision on
this point. The denial of the Divine Existence is
open and absolute. The belief in His existence
is directly, vehemently, elaborately attacked. The
origin of religion is traced to fear, ignorance, and
the experience of misery, and described as ir-
rational and mischievous in all its forms. The
only notion of God which is not absurd is held

88 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

to be that which identifies Him with the moving
power in nature. Deism is rejected as untenable
in itself, and as leading to superstition. Atheism
is maintained to be the truth, the true system, the
true philosophy, which must be accepted wherever
nature is rightly understood.

This truth, Von Holbach seriously assures us,
is not calculated for the vulgar, not suitable to the
great mass of mankind. " Atheism," he writes,
"supposes reflection; requires intense study; de-
mands extensive knowledge ; exacts a long series
of experiences ; includes the habit of contemplat-
ing nature ; the faculty of observing her laws,
which, in short, embraces the comprehensive study
of the causes producing her various phenomena
— her multiplied combinations, together with the
diversified actions of the beings she contains, as
well as their numerous properties. In order to be
an atheist, or to be assured of the capabilities of
nature, it is imperative to have meditated on her
profoundly : a superficial glance of the eye will not
bring man acquainted with her resources ; optics
but little practised on her powers will be unceas-
ingly deceived ; the ignorance of actual causes will
always induce the supposition of those which are
imaginary ; credulity will thus reconduct the natu-
ral philosopher himself to the feet of superstitious
phantoms, in which either his limited vision or his
habitual sloth will make him believe he shall find

Materialism in France. 89

the solution of every difficulty." While Holbach
was writing these words history was falsifying
them by showing that atheism was a creed which
the vulgarest of the vulgar could easily learn.
The masses whom the philosophers despised were
overhearing them, and finding no difficulty in
understanding the propositions, There is no God,
There is no soul, There is nothing in the universe
which may not be resolved into matter and
motion. These propositions have never been
proved by any one ; but the stupidest of men
may understand them without difficulty, and be-
lieve them and act on them to his own ruin and
his neighbours' injury. Our atheistical men of
science need not suppose that atheistical material-
ism is a kind of wisdom which they can keep to
themselves, so that it will not get into the posses-
sion of the dangerous classes, who may make a
frightful use of it. The dangerous classes, explain
it how you may, are just those who have always
shown a special aptitude for believing it. Hol-
bach, to do him justice, although he thought the
masses unqualified to understand and appreciate
atheism, did not wish or endeavour to conceal
it from them ; on the contrary, he wished and
zealously strove to propagate it among them.
The result amply proved that the task was not
a difficult one.

What Holbach substitutes fgr God is matter

go Anti-Theistic Theories,

and motion. These two, he holds, are inseparable.
Matter is not dead but essentially active. Obser-
vation and reflection, he says, ought to convince
us that everything in nature is in continual mo-
tion ; that there is not one of its parts, however
minute, that enjoys true repose ; that nature acts
in all; that she would cease to be nature if she
did not act To the obvious question, Whence
did nature receive her motion t he answers, " We
do not know, neither do you ; we never shall, you
never will." It is a most unreasonable answer to
a most reasonable question. Those who put the
question are men who offer reasons for believing
that the materials and the motions of the universe
are so fashioned, combined, and arranged as to
point back to a true and intelligent cause ; and
no one can have a right to set aside their reasons
by merely asserting that it can never be known
whence motion comes. The contention of the
theist is, that it may be perfectly well known that
both matter and motion come from a Supreme
and Intelligent Will. Further, to affirm that
matter moves of its own peculiar energies — that
it is essentially active and alive — is contrary to a
truth which all experience confirms, and on which
all physical and mechanical calculations are based,
— namely, that matter moves only as it is moved
— that if not acted on it will never move — and
that if once set in motion it will only cease mov-

Matei'ialisvi in France. 91

ing through being resisted. He who believes in
the activity of matter must abandon beHef in its
inertia. Like all materialists, Holbach had to
ascribe to matter more than he had right to do,
in order to be able to deduce the more from it.
This is also to be observed, that Holbach's heart
had at least as much to do as his head with ascrib-
ing activity and life to nature. It craved for more
than a merely material universe. It had affections
and aspirations which could only have been satis-
fied by a very different answer to the problem of
existence than that which materialism had to offer,
and although they never were satisfied they exert-
ed some influence. Speculative atheist although
he was, Holbach unconsciously felt the need of
having a being to worship. He denied nature's
God, but the soul within him worked throucfh his
imagination, and transformed nature until he could
adore it as his god. All through his book he is
ever and again vindicating, glorifying, and invok-
ing nature as a kind of deity. What is this, for
example, but prayer to nature as to a god, but
worship of an unenlightened and inconsistent
kind t " O nature, sovereign of all beings ! and
ye, her adorable daughters, virtue, reason, and
truth ! remain for ever our revered protectors : it
is to you that belong the praises of the human
race ; to you appertains the homage of the earth.
Show us then, O nature, that which man ought

92 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

to do in order to obtain the happiness which thou
makest him desire. Banish error from our mind,
wickedness from our hearts, confusion from our
footsteps ; cause knowledge to extend its benig-
nant reign, goodness to occupy our souls, serenity
to dwell in our bosoms."

There are numerous passages of this character
in the ' System of Nature.' Sometimes even a
better genius than his own familiar spirit takes
possession of its author, and causes him utterly to
forget that he is the avowed enemy of theism, and
a believer only in matter and motion. Witness a
passage like the following, which is in direct con-
tradiction to the atheism he usually and explicitly
inculcates : '' The great Cause of causes must
have produced everything ; but is it not lessening
the true dignity of the Divinity to introduce Him
as interfering in every operation of nature — nay,
in every action of so insignificant a creature as
man, — as a mere agent, executing His own eternal,
immutable laws; when experience, when reflec-
tion, when the evidence of all we contemplate,
warrants the idea that this ineffable Being has ren-
dered nature competent to every effect, by giving
her those irrevocable laws, that eternal, unchange-
able system, according to which all the beings
she sustains must eternally act } Is it not more
worthy of the exalted mind of the Great Parent
of parents, ens entium, more consistent with truth,

Materialism in France, 93

to suppose that His wisdom, in giving these im-
mutable, these eternal laws to the macrocosm,
foresaw everything that could possibly be re-
quisite for the happiness of the beings contained
in it ; that, therefore, He left it to the invariable
operation of a system, which never can produce
any effect that is not the best possible that cir-
cumstances, however viewed, will admit ? "

In the work under consideration, order and con-
fusion are maintained to have no existence in
nature itself All is necessarily in order, we are
told, since everything acts and moves according
to constant and invariable laws ; confusion is
consequently impossible. But as it is at the
same time admitted that a series of motions or
actions, although necessitated, may or may not
conspire to one common end, and as coexistent
individuals of any kind may either promote or
oppose the development of one another, the
reality both of order and confusion is actually
granted while professedly denied. That a child
should be born without eyes or legs is as much
an effect of natural causes as that it should be
born with them; but seeing that eyes and legs
are really useful to human beings, and not merely
supposed by them to be useful, the possession
or want of eyes and legs may be characterised
with the strictest propriety as an example of
order or confusion. In like manner, theft and

94 Anti-Theistic Theories.

murder, whatever their motives or the character
of their causation, are instances of real disorder
in the moral world, because violations of a law
which is not created by any thoughts or imag-
inations of ours. There is a plain distinction
between causation and fitness, and the latter is
as really in nature as the former.

Man, according to Holbach, is entirely material.
Immateriality and spirituality he pronounces to
be meaningless words. The mental faculties he
represents as only determinate manners of act-
ing which result from the peculiar organisation
of the body ; feeling, thought, and will, as only
modifications of the nerves and brain. He re-
iterates and amplifies these assertions, but he
does not prove them ; and, indeed, they are ob-
viously not only erroneous but nonsensical. The
brain is a thing which can be examined by sight
and other senses ; its minutest changes might be
traced by an eye of sufhcient strength, or by an
ordinary eye assisted by a sufficiently powerful
microscope; but a thought, a feeling, a volition
cannot even be conceived as perceived by the
sight or any sense. When a man describes any
state of consciousness as a modification of the
brain, or of any part of the body, he uses lan-
guage to which no meaning can be attached.

Holbach, believing that there is no God, and
that all that is called spirit in man is merely a

Materialism in France. 95

modification of the body, naturally denies both
immortality and freewill. The belief in a future
life is represented as a dream, a delusion. The
grave is supposed to receive into it the whole
man. Free agency is regarded as a mere fiction.
'' Man's life," we are told, " is a line drawn by
nature from which he cannot swerve even for an
instant. He is born without his own consent ;
his organisation in no wise depends upon him-
self; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his
habits are in the power of those who cause him'
to contract them ; he is unceasingly modified by
causes, whether visible or concealed, over which
he has no control, and which necessarily deter-
mine his way of thinking and manner of acting.
He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or
foolish, rational or irrational, without his will go-
ing for anything in these various states."

There is thus, according to Holbach, no God,
no soul, no future life, no freewill. Many will
think that from these premises he should have
drawn the conclusion, there is no morality. He
did not quite do that, for the man was greatly
better than his system ; but, of course, he could
not inculcate a pure or high morality. He could
only rest duty on self-interest. He could only
recommend virtue as a means to each man's
happiness. " Disinterested," he tells us, " is a
term only applied to those of whose motives

96 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

we are ignorant, or whose interest we approve,"
and " virtue is only the art of rendering one's self
happy by the felicity of others." It would be
unjust and ungenerous to deny that he recom-
mended the various personal and social virtues
with warmth, and in the accents of sincerity; but
it was on grounds which can be naturally and
readily employed to excuse vice.^

The moral principles advocated by La Mettrie
and Holbach were not peculiar to them. Hel-
vetius, Saint Lambert, Morelly, and a host of
other writers, likewise inculcated a more or less
refined selfishness, as the sole sure basis both of
ethical theory and ethical life. They could not
consistently do anything else. Materialism and
sensationalism can provide no other basis for
morality than self-love. But on such a basis
morality can never either rise high or stand
firm. The nation whose life rests on so crum-
bling a corner-stone is on the eve of a catastrophe.
This was exemplified in the case of France. It
would be incorrect, I believe, to say that the
sceptics and atheists of that country caused, with
their false and pernicious principles, either the
Revolution or the horrors which accompanied it.
The corrupt and disorganised state of society at
that time contributed to form scepticism and
atheism not less than scepticism and atheism

^ See Appendix XIII.

Materialism in France. gy

contributed to deteriorate society. There was
action and reaction. The atheism of the epoch
was as much the effect as the cause of its cor-
ruption. It was, certainly, not wholly either the
effect or the cause, but was partly both. Further,
the enormous and bewildering mass of events and
declarations called the French Revolution need
not be pronounced either wholly or mainly evil,
nor need the sceptical philosophers be denied to
have been largely instrumental in diffusing salu-
tary truths as well as pernicious errors. We may
give all due justice to the Revolution and its
authors and yet hold that its worst features were
the natural expressions of the materialistic and
atheistic views, and the selfish and sensuous prin-
ciples prevalent in the generation which accom-
plished it, and in the generation which preceded
it. When God w^as decreed a non - entity and
death an eternal sleep, when divine worship was
abolished and marriage superseded, the rights of
property disregarded, and life lavishly and wan-
tonly sacrificed, the atheistical materialism of La
Mettrie and Von Holbach was seen bearing its
appropriate poisonous fruit. If you convince men
that in nature and destiny they are not essentially
different from the beasts that perish, it may well
be feared that they will live and act as beasts,
casting off, as far as they can, all the restraints
imposed by human and divine institutions, all

G

98 Anti-Theistic Theories.

the bonds of the family, the Church, and the
State.

While materiahsm contributed in a considerable
measure to bring about the Revolution, the Revo-
lution did little to diffuse materialism and much
to discredit it. A reaction set in. A vast intellec-
tual and moral change, the causes of which have
not yet, perhaps, been adequately traced, came
over the European mind. Religion, poetry, litera-
ture, science, philosophy, were all permeated and
quickened by a new and deeper spirit. The con-
sequence was that materialism lost its hold on
men's minds and sank into general contempt.
The generation that admired Goethe and Schiller,
Wordsworth and Coleridge, Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Cousin, Hamilton, could only wonder that
a theory so poor and shallow as materialism had
ever exerted a wide and powerful influence. It
seemed as if its day were past ; as if it could
never return, except, perhaps, in some very
subtle and refined form.

But it is not to be hoped that materialism will
ever quite be got rid of, so long as the constitution
of the human mind and the character of human
society remain substantially what they are. Physi-
cal nature and its laws explain much, and so long
as the human mind is prone to exaggeration, and
education is imperfect and one-sided, and society
is more under the influence of the seen than the

Prevalence at Present of Materialism. 99

unseen, of the temporal than the eternal, it may be
anticipated that many will fancy that matter and
motion explain everything — and this fancy is the
essence of materialism. Thus materialism is a
danger to which individuals and societies will
always be more or less exposed. The present
generation, however, and especially the generation
which is growing up, will obviously be very speci-
ally exposed to it ; as much so, perhaps, as any
generation in the history of the world. Within
the last thirty years the great wave of spiritualistic
or idealistic thought, which has borne to us on its
bosom most of what is of chief value in the nine-
teenth century, has been receding and decreasing ;
and another, which is in the main driven by ma-
terialistic forces, has been gradually rising behind
it, vast and threatening. It is but its crests that
we at present see ; it is but a certain vague shak-
ing produced by it that we at present feel ; but we
shall probably soon enough fail not both to see
and feel it fully and distinctly. Materialism has
gained to itself a lamentably large proportion of
the chiefs of contemporary science, and it finds
in them advocates as outspoken and enthusiastic
as were Lucretius and Holbach. Multitudes are
disposed to listen and believe with an uninquir-
ing and irrational faith. Materialism — atheistical
materialism — may at no distant date, unless earn-
estly and wisely opposed, be strong enough to

/

100 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

undertake to alter all our institutions, and to
abolish those which it dislikes.

How is it that materialism has reappeared in
such force ? The following considerations may
yield a partial answer. In the first place, the
materialism of the eighteenth century has actu-
ally descended to, or been inherited by, the pres-
ent generation. Although for a considerable time
materialism was feeble and unpopular, it was never
wholly without defenders. The continuity of its
history was at no point completely broken. In
England, for example, three generations of Dar-
wins have entertained materialistic convictions.
Works like Thomas Hope's ' Essay on the Origin
and Progress of Man,' and the anonymous 'Ves-
tiges of Creation,' connect the ' Zoonomia ' of
Erasmus Darwin with the ' Origin of Species ' of
Charles Darwin. The principles of sensational-
ism found not a few zealous defenders when the
antagonistic doctrine was at the height of its suc-
cess, and sensationalism is intimately related to
materialism. About 1840 atheism began to be
openly avowed to a considerable extent among
the working classes, and what has since been
called secularism made its appearance. Secular-
ism involves materialism. In 1851 Mr Henry G.
Atkinson and Miss Harriet Martineau published
their * Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and
Development,' advocating without reservation or

Causes of Conteinpoi^ary Materialism. loi

restraint a crude materialism and utter atheism.
They taught that "philosophy finds no God in
nature, nor sees the want of any;" that "fitness
in nature is no evidence of design ; " that " all
causes are material causes influenced by surround-
ing circumstances ; " that " mind is the manifesta-
tion or expression of the brain in action ; " that
" instinct, passion, thought, are effects of organised
substances ; " that " only ignorance conceives the
will to be free ; " that " there is no more sin in a
crooked disposition than in a crooked stick in the
water, or in a hump-back or a squint ; " and that
" we ought to be content that in death the lease
of personality shall pass away, and that we shall
be as we were before we were — in a sleep for
evermore." It was no wonder that England was
shocked to be asked in the middle of the nineteenth
century to receive this old and sad story as good
news of great joy. But in the years which have
since elapsed a host of compositions have appeared
avowing quite as nakedly disbelief in God, spirit-
freedom, responsibility, and belief only in the pro-
perties and products of matter.^

Materialism was still more influential in France
than in England throughout the first half of the
present century. What little philosophy there
was under the revolutionary governments and
the Empire proceeded mainly on sensationalistic

^ See Appendix XIV.

102 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

or materialistic principles. Cabanis, De Tracy,
Volney, Garat, Broussais, Azais, adhered essen-
tially to the popular philosophical creed of the
eighteenth century. Other systems of thought in
process of time appeared and gained a temporary
supremacy. The theocratic and eclectic theories,
in particular, had for a season the most brilliant
success, and both were hostile to materialism in
all its forms. Alongside of them, however, arose
and spread the socialistic doctrines and schools,
which all favoured more or less both theoretical
and ethical materialism. The rehabilitation of
the flesh — the subordination of everything in man
to his stomach and senses — was the common aim
of the socialistic schemes for the improvement of
humanity. Even when the existence of God was
not denied, as in the system of Fourier, duty
was dethroned and sensuous desire raised into
the vacant throne. The condemnation of social-
ism is that it has shown itself blind to spiritual
and open-eyed to material interests. M. Emile
de Girardin expressed clearly and pointedly, not
merely his own faith, but that of the vast majority
of his socialistic countrymen, when he laid down
as established truths —

" That God has no existence ; or that if He exists, it is im-
possible for man to demonstrate the fact.
That the world exists'of itself, and of itself solely.
That man has no original sin to ransom.

Causes of Contemporary Materialism. 103

That he bears about him memory and reason, as flame
bears with it heat and light.

That he lives again in the flesh only in the child that he
begets.

That he survives intellectually only in the idea or the deed
by which he immortalises himself.

That he has no ground for expecting to receive in a future
life a recompense or punishment for his present con-
duct.

That morally good and ill do not exist substantially, abso-
lutely, incontestably, by themselves; that they exist only
nominally, relatively, arbitrarily.

That, in fact, there only exist risks, against which man,
obeying the law of self-preservation within him, and
giving law to matter, seeks to insure himself by the
means at his command."

The principles of materialism in combination with
socialism have been widely taught in France for
about half a century. The creed of the Commune
of Paris had been a prevalent and uninterrupted
tradition among certain classes during that length
of time.

It may be remarked, in the second place, that
idealism Itself led to materialism. This was espe-
cially the case in Germany, where Idealism had for
a considerable time the field almost entirely to
itself Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, reigned in succes-
sion. The sway of the last was for a time very
widely and humbly acknowledged. It seemed as
if he had founded an empire which would last —
as If absolute idealism had been demonstrated to

104 Anti-TJieistic TJicories.

be the definitive philosophy. But he had not been
dead eight years before his empire was divided
into three conflicting kingdoms, his disciples into
three schools, of which one was theistic, another
pantheistic, and the third atheistic. In that short
period a number of his disciples had found, or
fancied that they found, that absolute idealism
was little else than another name for material-
ism. Michelet and Strauss, while adhering to
the distinction between idea and nature, logic
and physics, contended that God is personal only
in man, and the soul immortal only in God, mean-
ing thereby that God as God is not personal, and
real souls not immortal. Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer,
Max Stirner, Arnold Ruge, reduced the idea to
mere nature and returned to naked atheism. With
a strange fanatical sincerity they preached that
the universal being of humanity, or the individual
man or nature, was the sole object of supreme
veneration.

In another way idealism occasioned materialism.
Its excesses under the manipulation of Fichte,
Schelling, Hegel, and their followers, provoked a
reaction in favour of empiricism. Speculation by
its audacity, combined with weakness and wordi-
ness, excited aversion. Men whose hopes had been
so often deceived by ideas, resolved to put con-
fidence only in facts. They determined to build
entirely on the data of the senses, and to follow

Causes of Contemporary Materialism. 105

exclusively the guidance of the physical sciences.
If they had done this they would necessarily have
been silent about God, the soul, the moral law, the
destiny of man, for these are subjects on which
mere sense and physical science have nothing to
say. At the same time, they are subjects on which
man as a rational and moral being cannot help
reflecting. The consequence in Germany was, that
many persons took to judging of them from the
merely physical science point of view. In the name
of this or that mechanical or biological generalisa-
tion, they hastened to inform the public that there
could be no God, no soul, no freedom, &c. Moles- ,'
chott, Vogt, Buchner, were in the van of this new '
movement, which is sometimes called scientific
materialism. As all the world knows, it has had
extraordinary success.

The chief reason, I remark in the third place, of
the prevalence of the so-called scientific material-
ism has been the rapid and brilliant progress in
recent times of the physical, and especially of the
biological sciences. All the sciences of material
nature — astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry,
geology, physiology, natural history, &c. — have
been within the lifetime of the present generation
wonderfully enriched with discoveries of facts and
laws, and signally productive of inventions which
have increased human wealth, comfort, and power.
The mental, moral, and theoWIcal sciences have

io6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

not advanced with anything hke the same speed ;
they can point to no similar harvest of indisputable
and benignant results ; if they have made any con-
quests, these have necessarily not been of a kind to
dazzle the eye and impress the imagination. It
is not surprising, therefore, that physical science
should have attracted general and engrossing at-
tention ; that it should to a large extent have been
cultivated and appreciated in a one-sided manner;
that what had been seen to do so much should
by many have been fancied to possess unlimited
powers. But this is equivalent to saying that it
is not surprising that many scientific men should
have become materialists, and should have imagined
their materialism due to their science, although
really due to their ignorance.

The mere study of physical nature does not
carry us beyond matter and its processes. ,Its
most elaborate methods can give us no apprehen-
sion of God, or soul, or moral sense. So far as
mere physical science can discern, " if God had
slept a million years, all things would be the
same." No telescope or microscope can enable us
to detect freewill or any other attribute of mind.
Physical science can only tell us of physical ob-
jects, physical properties, and physical laws. If
no other voice is to be heard, no other witness to
be called, the verdict of reason must necessarily be
that materialism is true.

Causes of Cov.tcmporary Materialism. 1 07

The recent progress of the biological sciences,
and the great popularity which they enjoy, are
also very noteworthy circumstances in this con-
nection. The least observant minds can hardly
fail to have been struck with the remarkable man-
ner in which these sciences have come to the front
during the last twenty or thirty years. It would be
easy to indicate the causes of this, but it is its
consequences which concern us. Materialism has
clearly gained by it in more ways than one. Nat-
uralists and physiologists are more apt, perhaps,
to become materialists than natural philosophers,
because it is possible for the former to be greatly
distinguished in their vocations without requiring
ever seriously to ask what matter is, but hardly
for the latter, who have to deal with it in its more
general and essential nature. The natural philo-
sopher may denounce as metaphysics the question.
What is matter } but he is not only always trying
to answer the question, but his answer, as a rule,
comes so near that of the metaphysician, that he
is rarely a materialist. It is in the form of ex-
aggerations of the influence of physical agencies,
and of physiological qualities, that materialism is
generally made use of as a principle of scientific
explanation ; and this is done by those whose
studies are least fitted to disclose to them what
the natural philosopher, and still more, the specu-
lative thinker, are perfectly aware of, that much

io8 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

more can be said for a mathematical theory of
matter or a mental theory of matter, than for a
material theory of mind and history.

The advance of science into the various pro-
vinces of the organic world has favoured material-
ism still more by its influence on the character
of the scientific spirit. Regions have now been
entered, where to proceed rigidly, according to the
rules either of deduction or induction, is as yet
often impossible ; where not a step can be taken
which is not conjectural and venturesome ; where
at every turn a host of hypotheses must be devised
and tested. What an enormous number of hypo-
theses have been suggested and associated with
the Darwinian doctrine of development, itself still
a hypothesis ! This state of things is inevitable,
but none the less is there a serious danger in it.
Men of science are not unlikely in such circum-
stances to forget v/hat the demands of scientific
method really are, and to allow the plausible often
to pass for the probable, and the probable for the
proved. What may be called the scientific con-
science, or, at least, scientific conscientiousness,
runs a serious risk of loss and injury. The risk
has, I fear, already largely passed into reality. Is
it not painfully obvious that a large number of
those who profess to give us scientific instruction
in biology, ethnology, sociology, &c., have the very
vaguest views of what proof is ? Is there not a

Causes of Contemporary Materialism. 109

very large increase of men, esteemed scientific, who
cannot distinguish a process of imagination from
one of induction ? Is there not rapidly rising up
a pseudo-scientific school of savants whose notions
of evidence are essentially different from those of
the older type of scientific man represented by
a Herschell or Faraday, a Brewster, Forbes, or
Thomson ? It seems to me that these questions
must be answered in the affirmative ; and that it
is almost exclusively from the new school — the
school which draws its resources largely from im-
agination— that the ranks of the so-called scientific
materialism of our day are recruited.

Such causes of the spread of materialism as the
following might also be dwelt upon, but it must
suffice simply to mention them, ici) Political and
social dissatisfaction. In some countries and in
certain classes this has been a most powerful cause.
In proof, I need only refer to secularism in Eng-
land and to socialism in France and Germany.
{b) The growth of rationalism and of aversion to
the supernatural. Materialism is the natural and
logical culmination of this movement. It is only in
and through materialism that the elimination of
everything supernatural can be reached, {c) The
predominance of material interests, — of the mer-
cantile spirit, — of the love of wealth, worldly dis-
play, and pleasure. The life determines theory
even more than theory influences life.

no Anti-TJieistic Theories.

Materialism, it must be added, has another
class of causes. It has all the reasons which it
can urge on its own behalf. It would be unfair,
at this stage, to insinuate that these are either
few or feeble. We shall examine them in next
lecture.

The A rguvient for Materialism. 1 1 1

LECTURE IV.

CONTEMPORARY OR SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM.

Materialism as a reasoned theory of the uni-
verse,— materialism as a philosophy, — is more than
two thousand years old. During that long period
it has had various fates and fortunes. It has at
one time ebbed, and at another flowed ; it has
suffered many checks and defeats, and has also
enjoyed many successes and triumphs. It has
never been more than partially and temporarily
vanquished ; it has sometimes seemed as if it
would carry all before it, and leave no foe unde-
stroyed. Its least sympathetic critic must admit
that it has shunned neither conflict with the most
formidable antagonists nor the scrutiny of the
doubting and discussing intellect ; that, on the
contrary, its course has been a continuous cam-
paign against all kinds of powers and principalities
in the name of free thought and scientific truth ;

112 Anti-Theistic Theories,.

and that when it has prospered, it has not been
under the shadow of authority, but in the Hght of
reason. It may be true that whenever it has been
widely prevalent, moral, social, and political influ-
ences have contributed to its diffusion ; that inter-
ests and passions have often been as helpful to it
as reasons. But the same may be said with equal
justice of all systems. No doctrine rests exclu-
sively on intellectual grounds, or triumphs merely
in the strength of pure reason. Materialism, it
cannot be denied, has constantly appealed to
reason, and has prevailed most in epochs charac-
terised by activity of reason. It has not faded
and decayed, but grown and flourished, with the
increase and expansion of scientific light. It was
never more prevalent than in the present day,
when the spirit of investigation is everywhere
obviously and energetically at work.

Materialism could never have thus lasted and
flourished had it not been a very plausible the-
ory. It could never have had the history which
it has had unless it had much to say for itself.
Make full allowance for interests and passions
operating in its favour, yet interests and passions
can only sustain and propagate either themselves
or any doctrine or movement when they are ac-
companied by the persuasion that reason is on
their side. Nothing is more impotent than mere
passion — blind passion, — except it be mere interest

TJie A rginnent for Materialism. 1 1 3

— interest consciously separated from or opposed to
truth. Materialism must be able to adduce in its
favour arguments which are fitted to impress and
convince both the popular and the scientific mind.
Its claims to acceptance must rest on grounds
which, while not recondite or difficult to under-
stand, are yet of a kind calculated to satisfy many
intellects which have been disciplined by physical
science.

That this is the case I must endeavour to show.
It is clearly impossible to examine in a single
lecture even a very few of the most celebrated
vindications of contemporary materialism, while
it would hardly be fair or satisfactory to discuss
merely one of them. It seems necessary, therefore,
to treat of contemporary materialism, or, as it is
sometimes called, scientific materialism, in a gen-
eral way. This requires that I should begin by
indicating as comprehensively as is consistent with
brevity the general character of the argumentation
which is employed in its support.

In the first place, then, materialism claims to
satisfy better than any other system the legitimate
demands of the reason for unity. There cannot
be more than one ultimate explanation of things.
If the variety of existences in the universe are
traced back to two or more causes, the intellect
must sooner or later perceive that it has stopped
abruptly and left its work incomplete. The two

H

114 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

or more causes which have been reached neces-
sarily hmit and condition one another. Whence
and why are they thus bounded and associated ?
The question cannot be evaded. Reason demands
an answer to it, and no answer can be found in the
several finite and co-ordinate causes themselves ;
it must be found in a single higher cause on which
they are dependent. It is only by reaching unity
that we can get above the limits and conditions
which are conclusive evidences of dependence.
Hence every form of dualism must be rejected as
a theory of existence. Only a monistic philosophy
can be a true philosophy. But theism, say ma-
terialists, is essentially dualistic. It traces the
diversity of phenomena in the universe not to one
cause, but to two causes. It refers some things to
mind, and other things to matter, and maintains
that matter and mind are substantially distinct.
It leaves us with two principles, and by so doing
virtually reduces even the one which it pronounces
infinite to something finite, while it renders it
impossible for us to conceive of the connection
between matter and mind otherwise than as
arbitrary. Materialism, on the other hand, is
monism. It explains the whole world in terms of
matter. It resolves everything in nature — order,
organisation, life, sensation, thought, poetry, re-
ligion, history — into combinations and motions of
matter. It exhibits the universe as a perfectly

The A rgument for Materialism. 1 1 5

homogeneous and coherent system naturally
evolved out of a single primary existence. It
thus satisfies the demands of philosophy or rational
theory for unity. Idealism, it is true, sets up rival
pretensions. It professes to start with the self-
identity or absolute unity of thought, and to ex-
plain matter as a stage in the development or as a
phase of the manifestation of thought. But are not
its claims obviously less satisfactory ? We know
nothing of ideas or thoughts except as states
of human consciousness, as affections or products
of that in ourselves which we call mind. They
are special phenomena in the life or experience
of men, and men are themselves only a species
of natural existences — a class of animals — appa-
rently the last evolved in the terrestrial sphere
of things. Man is included in the universe, and
ideas are included in man. Reason consequently
requires us to seek the explanation of man and
ideas in what is common and primary in the uni-
verse— matter and motion. To attempt to explain
what is ancient by what is recent, the general by
the particular, the macrocosm by the microcosm,
universal existence by the modifications of highly
specialised organisations, is a monstrous varepov
TTporepov, a manifest violation of the laws of scien-
tific method. Thought, which is independent of
human consciousness, can only be affirmed to
exist by an arbitrary act of the individual mind,

Ii6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

and is no real principle, but a mystical assump-
tion ; thought, which is dependent on human
consciousness, can no more be the unity which
accounts for the universe, than the characteristic
features of the leaves of a particular kind of tree
can be the sole and adequate explanation of the
entire vegetable kingdom.

Further, materialism claims to be the only
theory which satisfactorily shows that all things
have come to be what they are in a truly nat-
ural manner. When describing the evolution of
the universe from unity to multiplicity, it appeals
to no arbitrary or imaginary factor, no principle
which is supernatural, no process which transcends
or contravenes science. It represents the universe
as a self-consistent and perfect system, in which
everything that happens follows necessarily from
the powers inherent in the system itself. Theism,
on the contrary, supposes that the universe in
itself is incoherent and imperfect, and that the
explanation of many things in it must be sought
for out of itself It conceives of the matter of the
world as created ; of its powers as derived ; of its
order as contrived ; and of certain events and
existences comprehended in it as produced by
special acts of Divine interposition. Such a view,
say materialists, is essentially anti- scientific. It
implicitly denies not only that the world is a
scientific unity, but that its phenomena are expli-

The Argument for Materialism. 1 17

cable in a natural manner, whereas the chief end of
science is to show that the world is a S3'stematic
unity, and that all its phenomena can be naturally-
explained. Idealism may, indeed, be here again
opposed to materialism. Idealism also professes
to account in a strictly natural manner for all that
is explicable. It starts from the unity of a single
principle, and has recourse only to immanent pro-
cesses, excluding entirely acts of supernatural in-
terference. Idealism, however, it will be replied,
breaks down the moment it is brought into real
contact with external nature. The supposition of
its truth implies that the various operations of
the physical world can be explained by the laws
of an impersonal and unconscious dialectic ; that
mechanical, chemical, and organic processes are
essentially notional or rational. But this is a
hypothesis which physical science will not allow
us to entertain. The attempt to interpret me-
chanical, chemical, and organic facts in connection
with it has always resulted either in caricaturing
or contradicting the explanations of them given
by physical science. In other words, it has invari-
ably led to dualism of the worst kind, — the dual-
ism which consists in irreconcilable antagonism
between philosophy and science. Hegelianism
supplies us with a striking illustration and proof.
Hegel and his followers saw more clearly than the
idealists of any other school had done that it was

1 1 8 A nti- TJieistic Theories.

incumbent upon them to show that nature was a
system of which the processes were the stages and
expressions of an immanent logical evolution, and
they laboured strenuously and ingeniously at the
task. What was the result? A so-called philo-
sophy of nature, which physical science is forced
to condemn as a gigantic swindle. In the Hegelian
philosophy of nature, idealism made evident its
scientific bankruptcy. It is very different with
materialism, which accepts and incorporates the
whole of physical science without alteration or per-
version ; which founds upon the results of physical
research, and tries to extend its principles and
apply its methods as far as is legitimately possible.
A closely -connected excellence claimed by
materialism is that of being the most intelligible
of systems. It is maintained that we never truly
understand a fact or process of which we cannot
form a distinct and precise image or picture.
Whenever a thing is scientifically explained, the
mind is enabled to form to itself a definite and
clear conception of how that thing came to be
what it is. But pseudo- explanations — as, for
example, those given of natural phenomena by
ancient and scholastic philosophy — are invariably
vague and mystical. Can anything, however,
except matter and material processes, be definitely
and minutely imaged } Can anything else be esti-
mated with quantitative accuracy } Can there be

TJie A rgiimcnt for Materialism. 1 1 9

any exact knowledge — i.e., science — so long as ma-
terial properties are not reached ? The materialist
answers all these questions in the negative. And,
at the same time, he contends that the theistic
mode of accounting for the universe by the crea-
tive fiat of an Eternal Being is particularly unin-
telligible. Such a supposition seems to him to be
one which cannot, properly speaking, be realised
in thought at all. A man may verbally express
it, and even fancy that he believes it, yet it is in
itself essentially inconceivable.

From preliminary considerations like the fore-
going, the materialist may proceed to what is
strictly his argument, which still remains to be
stated. It consists in maintaining that the facts
of nature do not in any case demand for their
explanation a principle or principles distinct from
matter. The properties of matter are the sole, the
direct, and the immediate objects of the senses.
They confront the mind from the earliest dawn
of consciousness, and are apprehended by it long
before self- reflection is elicited. Touch, taste,
sight, hearing, and smell, all converge on matter,
and constrain us to commence with it. Before
we abandon it and its properties, the necessity of
having recourse to a distinct substance with dis-
tinct properties must be clearly made out. In the
inorganic world no such necessity arises. Yet it
is a world rich in differences, presenting a vast

120 Anti-Theistic Theories.

variety of constituents and forces, of stages and
processes, of colours, sounds, savours, and odours.
The objects of one sense are quite unlike those of
another, and light, heat, electricity, and magnet-
ism appear to be entirely distinct. But examina-
tion discovers everywhere an essential sameness.
It was the glory of the atomic or materialistic
philosophy of ancient Greece to have recognised
that the diversity of things was only secondary ;
that underneath the phenomenal variety was real
identity ; that all qualitative distinctions might
be resolved into quantitative distinctions. This
truth has not only been fully confirmed in modern
times, but has been brilliantly supplemented and
completed by the great discovery of the correla-
tion of forces. Light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
chemical affinity, and mechanical motion, have
been ascertained to be convertible. Any one of
them may be transformed into any other. They
are but modes of the movements which take place
among the molecules of matter. They are but the
metamorphoses of a common force, which is un-
changeable in amount although variable in quality.
Does the anti - materialist argue that, however
the case may stand with the inorganic world,
organisation cannot be conceived of as a product
of molecular combinations and mechanical forces }
Does he contend that there is a chasm or gulf
between inorganic and organic nature, and that

The A rgiinicnt for Materialism. 1 2 1

materialism fails to bridge over the distance be-
tween the one region and the other ? It may be
replied that this is an argument based not on
knowledge but on ignorance, and addressed not
to knowledge but to ignorance. Because we do
not know that purely physical forces can construct
a living cell as we know that they can build up a
crystal, we infer that they cannot do the former.
But logic warrants no such inference. A solution
of continuity, a chasm, in knowledge is no proof
that there is a solution of continuity or chasm in
nature. Ignorance cannot be legitimately reasoned
from as if it were knowledge.

Further, Is not the gap in science being gradu-
ally filled up ? Is not knowledge as it advances
making it apparent that there is no gap in nature
at the point indicated t In the light of recent
science we cannot but vividly realise that matter
is capable of transformations so diversified and
wonderful that we must be very cautious before
w^e venture to assign limits to its powers of adap-
tation, change, and efficiency. The same particle
of it may in succession be a constituent of a drop
of dew, of an invisible vapour, of a crystal of snow,
of a mineral, of the stem, sap, flower, or fruit of
a plant, and of the flesh, blood, bone, or brain of
man, performing necessarily very different func-
tions in the several instances. Crystallisation is a
process scarcely less marvellous in itself and in its

122 Anti-Theistic Theories.

results than growth. Why are we not to believe
that in the latter process no less than in the former
every molecule is placed in its position not by any
external power, whether creative mind or vital
principle, but by attractions and repulsions due to
the natures of the molecules themselves ? If mat-
ter can display in special circumstances the struc-
tural powers exhibited in crystallisation, why may
it not in other, perhaps more complex circum-
stances, manifest the organic powers witnessed in
vegetable and animal growth ?

It was until recently supposed that there was a
chasm which could not be bridged over between
the very chemistry of inorganic and organic bodies,
and that no animal substances could be com-
pounded by the chemist. This doctrine is now
overthrown. The supposed break in nature which
was regarded as indicating the presence and inter-
vention of a distinct principle in organised struc-
tures is now found to have been but a blank in our
knowledge. " Not many years since," says Mr
Spencer, " it was held as certain that the chemical
compounds distinguished as organic could not be
formed artificially. Now, more than a thousand
organic compounds have been formed artificially.
Chemists have discovered the art of buildinsf them
up from the simpler to the more complex ; and
do not doubt that they will eventually produce
the most complex."

The A rgnment for Materialism. 1 2 3

That the matter of organic bodies is the same
as that of inorganic objects has, of course, a very
important bearing on the question whether or not
vitaHty is resolvable into the mechanical properties
and chemical processes of matter. What that
bearing is I shall leave it to Professor Huxley to
state. Treating of the " Physical Basis of Life,"
he writes : " Plants are the accumulators of the
power which animals distribute and dispense. But
it will be observed that the existence of the mat-
ter of life depends on the pre-existence of certain
compounds — namely, carbonic acid, water, and
ammonia. Withdraw any one of these three from
the world, and all vital phenomena come to an
end. They are related to the protoplasm of the
plant as the protoplasm of the plant is to that
of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon
and oxygen unite in certain proportions, and under
certain conditions, to give rise to carbonic acid;
hydrogen and oxygen produce water; nitrogen
and hydrogen give rise to ammonia. These new
compounds, like the elementary bodies of which
they are composed, are lifeless. But when they
are brought together under certain conditions,
they give rise to the still more complex body,
protoplasm, and this protoplasm exhibits the phe-
nomena of life. I see no break in this series of
steps in molecular complication, and I am unable

124 Afiti'Theistic Theories.

to understand why the language which is appli-
cable to any one term of the series may not be
used to any of the others. We think fit to call
different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydro-
gen, and nitrogen, and to speak of the various
powers and activities of these substances as the
properties of the matter of which they are com-
posed. When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed
in a certain proportion, and the electric spark is
passed through them, they disappear, and a quan-
tity of water, equal in weight to the sum of their
weights, appears in their place. There is not the
slightest parity between the passive and active
powers of the water and those of the oxygen
and hydrogen which have given rise to it. . . .
Nevertheless, we do not hesitate to believe that,
in some way or another, the properties of the
water result from the properties of the component
elements of the water. We do not assume that a
something called aquosity entered into and took
possession of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as
it was formed, and then guided the aqueous
particles to their places in the facets of the crystal,
or amongst the leaflets of the hoar-frost. . . .
Does anybody quite comprehend the modus oper-
andi of an electric spark, Avhich traverses a mix-
ture of oxygen and hydrogen } What justification
is there, then, for the assumption of the existence
in the living matter of a something which has no

The A rgumcnt for Materialism. 1 2 5

representative or correlative in the not-living mat-
ter which gave rise to it ? What better philoso-
phical status has ' vitality ' than ' aquosity ' ? And
why should ' vitality ' hope for a better fate than the
other ' itys ' which have disappeared since Martinus
Scriblerus accounted for the operation of the
meat-jack by its inherent * meat-roasting quality,'
and scorned the materialism of those who ex-
plained the turning of the spit by a certain mech-
anism worked by the draught of the chimney?"

The mere chemical analysis of inorganic bodies,
then, proves that as to substance or matter they
are identical with inorganic objects. But science,
it is contended, carries us much farther, not merely
inferentially from this unity of composition, but
directly by demonstrating that what is called vital
force is simply mechanical and chemical force
transformed through the special conditions under
which it acts. The human body is as incapable
of generating force as is a steam-engine or a gal-
vanic battery. It only distributes the force which
it receives from the world without, and varies its
manifestations to the senses. Its every action
and process — walking and climbing, pulling and
pushing, respiration and digestion, assimilation
and excretion — can be shown to be either a
mechanical or chemical operation. The force
displayed by animals in muscular contractions is
entirely derived from the energy stored up in the

126 Anti-Theistic Theories.

food which they consume. The heat which is
diffused through their frames is due to chemical
combination. Digestion is simply a form of
combustion. The circulation of the blood is
indubitably a mechanical movement effected by
mechanical force. What room is left in organ-
isms for a vital force essentially distinct from the
inorganic powers of matter .? It is unnecessary to
dwell longer on an argument which has been so
often presented to the English public in the brill-
iant expositions of Professor Tyndall.

The significance of the doctrine of evolution
must also not be overlooked in the present
connection. A few years ago every group of
organisms called a species was supposed to have
originated in a direct creative act or miracle.
Now, this hypothesis is almost universally aban-
doned. Its place is occupied by Darwinianism or
some other form of the development theory. An
enormous mass of facts has been collected from
astronomy, geology, geography, biology, linguis-
tics, 8z:c., and presented in a light which has con-
vinced most scientific men that from a few organic
forms, if not from a single organism, of the
simplest kind, all organised beings have been
gradually, naturally, and necessarily formed and
distributed. But if this theory be true (and those
who deny its truth must disprove it), obviously the
probability is very great that, as there has been

TJic A rginncnt for MatcrialisuL 1 27

no supernatural interposition in the course of the
evolution of organic beings, so there was none
when life and organisation first began to be, and
consequently, that no absolutely new principle, no
immaterial vital force, was then abruptly and in-
explicably inserted into nature.

If it be admitted, on the strength of the fore-
going and similar considerations, that even a single
vital cell may have originated in the laboratory
of nature, under peculiar conditions, from the
combination of inorganic elements and the action
of chemical and mechanical forces, it can be left
to the Darwinian theory of development to ex-
plain how that single cell might, in the course of
millions on millions of years, by successive infini-
tesimally minute modifications, be the source from
which every plant and animal in the world has
derived its life and organisation. In so 'far as
biology accomplishes, or attempts to accomplish,
this task, it may be held to be simply a stage or
section of the materialistic theory, and materialism
to be identical with biological science.

It will be said that there is an impassable
barrier between vegetable and animal life — that
plants can never have risen into animals, nor ani-
mals degenerated into plants. Mr Spencer has
thus answered this argument when replying to Dr
Martineau : " This is an extremely unfortunate
objection to raise. For though there are no

128 Anti-Theistic Theories.

transitions Irom vegetal to animal life at the
places Mr Martineau names (where, indeed, no
biologist would look for them), yet the connection
between the two great kingdoms of living things
is so complete that separation is now regarded as
impossible. For a long time naturalists endeav-
oured to frame definitions such as would, the one
include all plants and exclude all animals, and the
other include all animals and exclude all plants.
But they have been so repeatedly foiled in the
attempt that they have given it up. There is no
chemical distinction that holds ; there is no struc-
tural distinction that holds ; there is no functional
distinction that holds ; there is no distinction as
to mode of existence that holds. Large groups
of the simpler animals contain chlorophyll, and
decompose carbonic acid under the influence of
light, as plants do. Large groups of the simpler
animals, as you may observe in the diatoms from
any stagnant pool, are as actively locomotive as
the minute creatures classed as animals seen along
with them. Nay, among these lowest types of liv-
ing things it is common for the life to be now pre-
dominantly anim.al, and presently to become pre-
dominantly vegetal. The very name zoospores, given
to germs of Algce^ which for a while swim about
actively by means of cilia, and presently settling
down grow into plant-forms, is given because of this
conspicuous community of nature. So complete

The A rgHjncnt for Materialism. 1 29

is this community of nature, that for some time
past many naturahsts have wished to estabHsh for
these lowest types a sub -kingdom, intermediate
between the animal and the vegetal : the reason
against this course being, however, that the diffi-
culty crops up afresh at any assumed place where
this intermediate sub-kingdom may be supposed
to join the other two. Thus the assumption on
which Mr Martineau proceeds is diametrically op-
posed to the conviction of naturalists in general."
— Cont. Rev., June 1872.

There remains the barrier of mind or conscious-
ness. The materialist maintains that science
proves that matter is, in this case, also an ade-
quate principle of explanation. All the powers of
the human mind may be traced to roots in the
lower animals. The life of the body and its
functions are manifestations of the same generic
principle as the so-called life of the soul and its
functions. There is only a difference of degree
between the highest mental and the lowest vital
faculties. There is no absolute break or distinc-
tion, but, on the contrary, a continuous progres-
sion along the entire psychological line which runs
from the protogeiies and protamccba to Plato and
Shakespeare, and yet in the two former the mo-
tions, which are the evidences of their animality,
are scarcely, if at all, distinguishable from the
contractions and expansions of certain colloidal

I

130 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

substances. The doctrines of the correlation of
forces and of development are as applicable to
the explanation of mind as of life. Mind is force,
the highest development of force, the force which
is accumulated in the brain and nerves ; and men-
tal force is as exactly correlated with vital and
with physical force as these are with each other.
It may be proved by a variety of scientific con-
siderations that all forces come under the same
generalisation. Motion, heat, and light, may be
transformed into sensation, emotion, and thought ;
and these may be reconverted into motion, heat,
and hght. The theory of development has been
employed with success by a host of investigators
in the elucidation of all kinds of mental pheno-
mena. The result has been to show that the
phenomena peculiar to human psychology may
be resolved into simpler states, and that these
may be traced backwards and downwards until
the primordial properties of matter are reached.
The argument for materialism may now, per-
haps, be fitly concluded in the words of Professor
Huxley : " I take it to be demonstrable that it is
utterly impossible to prove that anything what-
ever may not be the effect of a material and
necessary cause, and that human logic is equally
incompetent to prove that any act is really spon-
taneous. A really spontaneous act is one which,
by the assumption, has no cause ; and the attempt

TJie A rgument for Materialism. 1 3 1

to prove such a negative as this, is, on the very
face of the matter, absurd. And while it is thus
a philosophical impossibility to demonstrate that
any given phenomenon is not the effect of a ma-
terial cause, any one who is acquainted with the
history of science will admit that its progress has,
in all ages, meant, and now more that ever means,
the extension of the province of what we call mat-
ter and causation, and the concomitant gradual
banishment from all regions of human thought
of what we call spirit and spontaneity. And as
surely as every future grows out of the past and
present, so will the physiology of the future grad-
ually extend the realm of matter and law until it
is coextensive with knowledge, with feeling, and
with action. The consciousness of this great truth
weighs like a nightmare, I believe, upon many of
the best minds of these days. They watch what
they conceive to be the progress of materialism,
in such fear and powerless anger as a savage feels
when, during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps
over the face of the sun. The advancing tide of
matter threatens to drown their souls ; the tight-
ening grasp of law impedes their freedom ; they
are alarmed lest man's moral nature be debased
by the increase of his wisdom." ^

^ See Appendix XV.

132 Anti-Theistic Theories.

II.

A general view of the argument in favour of
materialism has now been laid before you. My
next duty is to examine whether or not the reason-
ing which it includes and involves is valid.

Is it true, then, I ask, that materialism satisfies
the legitimate demands of the reason for unity ?
I grant that reason, when in quest of an ultimate
explanation of things, imperatively demands unity,
and that only a monistic theory of the universe
can deserve the name of a philosophy. While
aware that the desire for unity has given rise to
countless aberrations, and that it needs to be care-
fully watched lest it create factitious unities when
it fails to find real unities, I yet unhesitatingly
acknowledge that it originates in, and is the
expression of, the very constitution of rational
thought, which can never regard a number of
co-ordinate causes as other than a group of sec-
ondary causes. But the question is. Is material-
, ism monism } or, in other words, Is matter one }
I answer, No. Matter cannot possibly be con-
ceived of as properly one. Materialism is neces-
sarily multitudinism, and as such must inevitably
be pronounced an ,essentially unphilosophical and
irrational hypothesis.

The world presented to us by the senses and

General Objections to Materialism. 1 3 3

immediate consciousness is certainly not one, and
is held by nobody to be one. It is a vast complex
of objects, agencies, and conditions — stars, stones,
plants, animals, light, heat, electricity, thoughts,
feelings, volitions. Its contents may have a unity
imparted to them by generalisation, but merely a
unity which is given to them from without and for
a purpose, — a unity which depends on the point
of view from which things are considered. There
may be any number of such unities ; there may
be even more of them than there are things. Real
unity cannot be thus reached. Nor is it thus but
by analysis that materialists seek it. Things may
be resolved into their elements ; compounds may
be reduced to simples. This process of analysis
might conceivably take us far towards a sort of
unity in a strictly scientific manner. I cannot
indeed admit its sufficiency to take us quite even
to the unity of a single physical element, for no
such element, no single entirely uncompounded
element, can ever produce another. Two physical
elements may produce a third, but no one element
can ever produce anything. It must for ever re-
main itself. There is, however, no obvious reason
why analysis should not have proved that there
are only two, or at least a" very few, physical ele-
ments, out of which have been formed by succes-
sive combinations all material substances, the so-
called elements included. But it has in reality

134 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories.

done nothing of the kind ; it has not taken us a
step towards unity. The ancient Greek philoso-
phers beheved the elements of matter to be far
fewer than do our modern chemists. It is just the
reverse of the truth to affirm that the tendency of
physical research has been to demonstrate the
unity or simplicity of matter. Chemical science
may display that tendency in the future, but it
has not displayed it in the past. Even if we are
content to ignore mind, to treat psychical ele-
ments as if they had no existence, scientific
analysis takes us to about sixty- four ultimates
instead of to one ultimate. Had the number been
much smaller — had it been only two — it would
still have been a result incompatible with a ma-
terialistic monism. Reason cannot acquiesce even
in two ultimates, although much less, of course, in
sixty-four.

It may very well be that many of the substances
which chemists at present call elementary are not
simple. Spectrum analysis and the phenomena of
allotropy suggest the conclusion that some of
them are complex. It is free to any one to conjec-
ture that they have all been formed by compound-
ing and recompounding absolutely indecompos-
able and homogeneous units. But it is free to no
one to put this forward as more than a conjecture,
or to conceal that the analysis of the so-called
elementary substances might result not in dimin-

General Objections to Materialism. 1 3 5

ishing but in increasing the number of substances
which would have to be admitted, at least provi-
sionally, as ultimate. In the present state of our
knowledge this is just as legitimate a conjecture as
the opposite. We have as yet no properly scien-
tific reason for believing that the elements of
matter are really fewer than they are supposed
to be. We are very far, indeed, from being
entitled to affirm that there is only one physical
element. But until this conclusion is established,
the original of the materialist cannot even be re-
garded as one in kind. His matter is not all of
the same sort. It is essentially a multiplicity of
things specifically distinct. It cannot, consequently,
be the basis of a monistic system of thought.

Let me, however, make to the materialist an
enormous concession, and one to which he is not
entitled. Let me suppose him to have done what
he has certainly not done — to have proved what
he has merely conjectured — namely, that there
exists but a single truly elementary physical sub-
stance. Let me, further, not press him with any
of the perplexing questions which suggest them-
selves as to the nature of the wholly undifferen-
tiated, absolutely homogeneous matter which his
single primordial element must be. Matter, let it
be granted, then, is reducible to a single physical
constituent. That proves m.atter to be of one kind
or sort. But does it prove it to be one? This is

136 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

the decisive question, and obviously the only pos-
sible answer is a negation. A pure, homogeneous,
physical element is not in the least a real unity.
It is an aggregate of parts, each ot which is as
much a substance as the whole. You may take a
portion of it from one place and another portion
of it from another place— a yard, say, or a mile
distant— and these portions may be perfectly alike,
yet they are also perfectly distinct. The one is
not the other. They are not identical ; not one.
A physical element, therefore, although entirely
pure and unmixed, is necessarily a multitude. It
consists of as many substances as it consists of
atoms. Real unity is precisely what it has not
and cannot have in itself. To talk of materialistic
monism is, therefore, as self- contradictory as to
talk of a circular square. It is a kind of speech
which betrays intellectual bankruptcy.

The unsatisfactoriness of materialism as regards
the demand of reason for unity becomes only the
more evident when we take into consideration the
fact that force is always combined with matter.
This fact is disputed by no one, but opinions
differ widely as to how matter and force are com-
bined. Is matter the cause of force .? Is force a
result of matter.? An answer in the affirmative
is, perhaps, the only one which materialism can
consistently give. It is an answer, however,
which satisfies the principle of unity at the ex-

General Objections to Matei'ialism. 1 2)7

pensc of the principle of causality, and is, be-
sides, inherently unintelligible. How can matter
be the cause of force or any other effect unless
it have force to cause the effect ? A matter
which produces force without force is a cause
which is destitute of power to be a cause. Mat-
ter which is mere matter — matter which is ante-
cedent to force — is matter which explains no-
thing; and that such matter should, in a uni-
verse of which the original principle is matter, be
always and everywhere accompanied by force, is
a greater mystery than any contained in theology
or metaphysics.

Hence the majority of materialists have pre-
ferred to represent matter and force as at once
inseparable and co-ordinate. According to this
view both are ultimate, and the one is not related
to the other as cause and effect. But what, then,
becomes of the unity or monism of the materialist .-*
It vanishes, and in its place there emerges a dual-
ity by which he cannot fail to be embarrassed.
But the difficulty which he has now to encounter
has been so accurately and comprehensively stated
by Professor Calderwood, that quotation will com-
pletely serve my purpose. " The perplexity of
the problem under a materialistic theory is not
lessened but increased when duality of origin is
assigned, by introducing Force in addition to
Material Substance. Duality of existence, with co-

138 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

eternity of duration, involves perplexity sufficient
to bar logical procedure. This duality of exist-
ence implies diversity of nature and mutual re-
striction ; and these two, diversity and limitation,
raise anew the problem which they were meant to
solve. The explanation needs to be explained.
Again, matter and force are postulated primarily
to account for motion, but in accounting for mo-
tion, they are proved Insufficient to account for
existence. That which needs to have force exerted
upon It in order to be moved is not self-sufficient,
and the same is true of the force which needs
matter on which to exert its energy." — Hand-
Book of Moral Philosophy, pp. 235, 236.

Force may be conceived of as neither the effect
of matter nor co-ordinate with it, but its cause.
This is a not uncommon view, and much may be
urged in its support. But obviously, if It be true,
materialism Is erroneous. Matter Is in this case
not what is first in the universe— force Is before it ;
and Indeed matter, when thus reduced to a mere
effect of force acting on sense, is virtually abolished
as a substance. The universe of matter is resolved
into a universe of force. The force may, however,
be conceived of as merely physical force. Would
this universe of physical force be a unity } Cer-
tainly not. As physical force— force Indissolubly
associated with a material manifestation — it could
merely h^ force of one kind, not one force. It must

General Objections to Materialism. 139

necessarily be as divisible, as multiple, as its mate-
rial manifestation. The force in one place could
not but be distinct from the force in another place.
A world of physical force must be a world which
is simply an aggregate of physical forces.

It follows from what has been said that the
world can have no real unity either in mere matter
or mere physical force. If reason is to find the
unity it seeks, it must go farther and deeper ; it
must not stop short of an immaterial cause of
matter, of an indivisible source of divisible forces,
of a power which can give to what is essentially
multiple the unity of arrangement and plan. Mon-
ism can have no other solid basis than the truth
that the universe " lives and moves and has its
being" in a single creative and providential Mind,
"of whom, through whom, and to whom are all
things."

We have next to examine whether or not the
claim of materialism to be a system which pro-
ceeds on principles that are strictly natural and
scientific, is well founded. It seems to me that it
is not. One of its principles is that there is noth-
ing in the universe except matter, and what is
explicable by matter; that to refer to anything
else as a cause is to appeal to an arbitrary or
imaginary factor. Now, whatever the affirmation
here may be as a conclusion, it is plainly irrational
and unscientific as a principle. The man who

140 Anti-Theistic Theories.

beeins Investifration with it comes to nature with
an a pi'iori dogma, and insists that she shall only
tell him what he already wishes to believe. That
is not scientific, but essentially anti - scientific.
Genuine science demands that nature shall be al-
lowed to speak for herself and be believed, whether
she teaches that the principles required for the
explanation of her phenomena are few or many.
No factor ought to be pronounced arbitrary or
imaginary until proved to be not required for the
explanation of facts. The materialist, if he would
be truly scientific, must be content to wait until
he has finished his argumentation against the
spiritualist and the theist before he affirms that
to trace effects to God or the soul is to appeal to
an arbitrary factor. But where are there materi-
alists to be found who are willing to do anything
of the kind t I know of none. Almost without
exception, materialists assume at the outset that
science is bound to recognise only material causes,
and their whole argumentation is largely depen-
dent on this assumption.

A second principle of materialism is that the
higher must be explained by the lower, the supe-
rior by the inferior. Comte was perhaps the first
clearly to point out that this is the universal and
distinctive characteristic of materialism. It ac-
counts for force by matter, for the orderly by the
unorderly, for the organic by the inorganic, for

General Objections to Materialism. 141

life by chemistry and mechanism, for thought,
feeling, and volition, by molecular motions in the
brain and nerves. It assumes that this is the
peculiarly and exclusively scientific method of
procedure. But the assumption is unwarranted so
long as the anti-materialist can argue on rational
grounds that this so-called scientific procedure is
a continuous violation of the principle of causality.
And this, I need scarcely say, is precisely what
the anti-materialist maintains. He undertakes to
show that, at every fresh stage in the materialistic
course of explanation, there is more in the alleged
effect than in the assigned cause, or, in other
words, that there is something in the so-called
effect which is traced to no cause, and conse-
quently, that something is implied to be produced
by nothing. Materialism professes to accept the
axiom that "nothing comes from nothing" more
strictly than any other system ; but its critics
complain that the principle of which it makes the
most frequent application is that the greater may
be caused by the less — that something may come
from nothing. The materialist declares his in-
ability to believe in creation by the infinite power
of an infinite mind, but he seems to his opponents
to display a wonderful capacity for believing in a
whole series of creations out of nothing and by
nothing. It is not for me to pronounce at present
whether this accusation be well founded or ill

142' Anti-TJieistic Theories.

founded. It is sufficient for my immediate pur-
pose that materialism can have no claim to be
considered scientific until the charge is disproved.
There can be nothing scientific in continuously
violating the law of causality.

Yet some persons seem to see nothing irrational
even in such violation. The author of a recently
published work, entitled ' A Candid Examination
of Theism ' — an author who writes under the iiom
de plume of " Physicus " — quotes these words of
Locke : " Whatsoever is first of all things must
necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at
least, all the perfections that can ever after exist ;
nor can it ever give to another any perfection that
it hath not actually in itself, or at least in a higher
degree ; it necessarily follows that the first eternal
being cannot be matter." He then adds, "Now,
as this presentation is strictly formal, I shall meet
it with a formal reply, and this reply consists in
a direct contradiction. It is simply untrue that
* whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily
contain in it, and actually have, at least, all the per-
fections that can ever after exist ; ' or that it can
never ' give to another any perfection that it hath
not actually in itself.' In a sense, no doubt, a
cause contains all that is contained in its effects ;
the latter content being potentially present in the
former. But to say that a cause already contains
actually all that its effects may afterwards so con-

General Objections to Alaterialisin. 143

tain, is a statement which logic and common-sense
ahke condemn as absurd." — (P. 21.) Indeed!
The affirmation of Locke which is here met with
a "direct contradiction," and pronounced "simply
untrue," may not have been unexceptionably ex-
pressed, but it just means that every cause must
be a sufficient cause, — that a weight of four
pounds, for example, cannot balance one of ten
pounds ; and he who meets it with a direct con-
tradiction needs, of course, no contradiction, espe-
cially if he has failed to perceive that a cause is
only a cause in so far as it displays actual power
and perfection. It is curious, however, that the
writer mentioned should be able to quote an ar-
gument to the same effect from Mr J. S. Mill's
' Essay on Theism.' We there read : " Apart from
experience, and arguing on what is called reason
— that is, on supposed self-evidence — the notion
seems to be that no causes can give rise to pro-
ducts of a more precious or elevated kind than
themselves. But this is at variance with the
known analogies of nature. . How vastly nobler
and m.ore precious, for instance, are the vegetables
and animals than the soil and manure out of
which, and by the properties of which, they are
raised up ! The tendency of all recent speculation
is towards the opinion that the development of
inferior orders of existence into superior, the sub-
stitution of greater elaboration and higher organ-

144 Anti-Theistic Theories.

isation for lower, is the general rule of nature.
Whether this is so or not, there are at least in
nature a multitude of facts bearing that character,
and this is sufficient for the argument." — (P. 152.)
One asks with astonishment, Is it really meant to
be said that vegetables and animals are wholly
caused by soil and manure } Have the sun and
parent vegetables and animals, and many other
adjacent and antecedent agencies, contributed
nothing to their perfections t No sane person has
ever fancied that there may not be more in an
effect than in any of its partial causes. The ques-
tion is, Can there be more in an effect than in its
complete cause, whether that be a single cause or
the sum of a multitude of partial causes .? Reason
affirms it to be self-evident that there cannot, and
not a fact or analogy in nature is at variance with
the affirmation. The latest and most elaborate
result of development can have no perfection
which it has not derived from some of the agents
which have concurred in its formation. But what-
soever is first of all things must be the whole cause
of all things. Secondary causes cannot add to
what it contributes, since they only impart of what
they have themselves received from it. Therefore
it must necessarily contain in itself all the perfec-
tions that can ever after exist. To deny this is
wholly to set aside the law of causality. It is not
what "Physicus" calls it, a "childishly easy refuta-

General Objections to Materialism. 145

tion " of Locke's argument, but it is childish in
every respect.

The materiahst believes that he takes up a
specially respectful attitude towards science, and
defers more to its teaching than does the theist.
But this, again, is what cannot be granted. The
materialist goes to science with a theory which he
ought to be content to derive from it, and which
must make it impossible for him to study such
departments of knowledge as psycholgoy, ethics,
and history — not to speak of theology — in an
unprejudiced and liberal manner. He cannot but
be as incapable of impartiality in estimating the
teachings of the mental sciences as the idealist in
judging of the doctrines of the physical sciences.
The theist, in reality, occupies a far more advan-
tageous position. He can be both just and def-
erential alike towards the physical and mental
sciences ; he is committed to no one mode of ex-
plaining phenomena ; he is bound to accept the
facts and laws of all science just as science gives
them ; and when science shows him that God has
operated in nature, mind, or history, otherwise
than he imagined, he can, without having any
reason to be ashamed, because in perfect consis-
tency with his principles, modify his theology in
accordance with the new information which he has
received. If force be not explicable by matter —
the living by the dead — species by evolution —

K

146 Anti-Theisiic Theories.

mental phenomena by physical properties, — mate-
rialism must be erroneous. Were all these posi-
tions proved, theism would not be disproved.

The view which is expressly maintained by
some, and tacitly assumed by many materialists
—the view that only explanations which can be
subjected to the verification of the senses, or repre-
sented in imagination as processes which the senses
might trace if their powers were sufficiently magni-
fied, are truly scientific — is also untenable. Genu-
ine explanation requires, of course, definite thought,
and is generally attained in regard to physical
things only with the discovery of exact quanti-
tative relations ; but thought, which merely recalls
or represents sense, is seldom definite, and even in
physical investigation the path of progress is from
sense towards pure thought. Scientific comprehen-
sion is only attained when intelligence has got
beyond figurate or pictorial conception, and has
freed itself from the material and sensuous elements
contained in immediate perception. Scarcely any
cause has had a more perverting influence on the
study of mental and moral facts than the bias
which the mind derives from its familiar converse
with the objects of sense to assimilate all other
objects to these, and to think of them under mate-
rial categories, or according to material analogies.
The philosopher and the theologian require to be
constantly on their guard against being deluded

General Objections to Mater ialisni. 147

by the subtle operation of the same cause, seeing
that a multitude of religious and speculative be-
liefs which reason must reject flow from this
source. Materialism undoubtedly owes much of
its success to habitually addressing the mind in
figurate language and through sensuous imagery.
Instead of convincing the understanding by strictly
relevant reasons, it meets at one and the same
time its craving for satisfaction, and its aversion
to exertion, by hypotheses agreeable to the ima-
gination, because capable of being easily repre-
sented in a pictorial or sensuous form. But in the
eyes of thoughtful men, this, the great secret of its
power, is an evidence of its scientific worthlessness.
Materialism must ever be plausible to the popular
understanding, but simply, so its opponents think,
because it is content to stop short at the plausible
and popular.

III.

Thus far I have only dealt with the generalities
of materialism. It is now necessary to come to
particulars.

The materialist supposes that there is a matter
which precedes every form of mind, and exists
independently of all thought. But can he prove
this t It requires to be proved, because it seems
to many untrue, and even contradictory. Mere

148 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

matter— matter in itself— matter as an exclusively
objective fact, or as wholly independent of intelli-
gence,— is, they hold, unknown and unknowable
matter. It is no more possible, so they tell us, to
think of such matter than to think of a centreless
circle, or a stick with merely one end. The only
matter which by any stretch of mind can be con-
ceived or imagined as even a possible object of
knowledge, — thus runs the averment, — is matter
which is not alone, but accompanied by mind ;
matter which is relative to and dependent on
mind. But if this be true, on what ground can
the materialist maintain that there is any such
thing as the matter of which he talks 1 If that
which he represents as the sum and substance and
explanation of all existences is an absolute con-
tradiction in thought, what authority has he for
attributing to it real being and wonderful powers ^
If matter is never known and cannot be known
to have an independent existence, how does he
reach the conclusion that it has an independent
existence }

This argument, familiar to the students of Pro-
fessor Ferrier's ' Institutes of Metaphysic,' com-
pletely blocks the path of the materialist, so that
he must remove it before he can proceed. Now
I pronounce no opinion on the absolute validity
of the argument. It signifies not for my present
purpose whether it proves merely the truism that

special Objections to Materialism. 149

matter cannot be known without a mind to know
it, or conclusively demonstrates that matter cannot
exist without some mind to perceive or think of
it. It is sufficient to remark that there appears to
be but one way by which it may conceivably be
shown that the argument does not establish all
that it was meant to do, and that this way is
clearly not open to the materialist. Although the
knowledge of matter must always be accompanied
by a knowledge of mind, matter and mind may,
with at least an appearance of reason, be argued
to be known as distinct and independent, and
therefore, to be distinct and independent. But
the materialist is obviously precluded from thus
arguing, because his materialism necessarily in-
volves sensationalism, and sensationalism neces-
sarily signifies that all knowledge of matter is
dependent on the particular constitution of the
senses of the individual. Matter can be for the
materialist merely what it is felt to be, or what
it is imagined to be in consequence of being felt.
He cannot consistently pretend to any knowledge
of it as it is in itself, or to any knowledge of its
properties as independent objective facts. The
doctrine of real presentationism is incompatible
with a materialistic theory of the nature of know-
ledge ; and yet, where this doctrine is not main-
tained, matter cannot even be seriously argued to
precede or to exist apart from mind.

150 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

The materialist, then, supposes that there exists
a matter which is merely objective or entirely in-
dependent of thought ; but he has no reply to give
to any one who maintains that he can only know
matter as that which is inseparably associated with
mind, and essentially dependent upon thought,
or, in other words, that the matter by which he
pretends to explain intelligence is matter which
presupposes intelligence. He thus starts with a
fatal self-contradiction, from which he cannot free
himself by any alteration or amendment of his
views of matter short of entire renunciation of the
doctrine that matter is the absolute first of exist-
ence— the original of all things. He may cease to
think of matter per se as possessed of definiteness
and form — he may drop out of his conception of
it one distinctive property after another — he may
resolve it into conditioned, and even into uncon-
ditioned force, — but the self-contradiction will cling
to him at the last as firmly as at the first. To get
rid of it he may commit mental suicide by casting
himself into the abyss of the " unknowable ; " but it
will hold on by him there more triumphantly than
ever, and will not be shaken off" until he confess
that the unknowable is at least known not to be
devoid of knowledge any more than of force.

Materialism, I remark next, affirms that matter
is eternal without justifying the assertion. Mate-
rialism is manifestly bound to prove the eternity

special Objections to Materialism. 1 5 1

of matter, since all that is distinctive of the system
rests on this presupposition. Unless matter be
eternal it must have been originated. The whole
argumentation of the theist in support of the doc-
trine of the Divine existence is designed to show
that the world is not eternal, not self- existent.
That there is something eternal and self-existent,
the atheist, pantheist, and theist, the material-
ist and the spiritualist, agree in acknowledging.
None of them calls upon the others to explain
the mystery of self- existence. Every sane mind
receives that mystery and credits other minds
with doing the same. Doubt and difference of
opinion are only possible as to what is self-existent
or eternal. Is it mind or matter, personal or im-
personal, knovvable or unknowable t The theist
believes it to be mind, and produces what he
deems relevant and conclusive evidence to prove
that it is mind. What evidence has the material-
ist to the contrary, and for believing that matter is
that which is self-existent and eternal 1

Many materialists have the candour to acknow-
ledge that they have none whatever. They con-
fess entire ignorance on the subject. They are
ready to accept as a true statement of their posi-
tion that made by Professor Tyndall on a cele-
brated occasion. " If you ask the materialist
whence is this matter of which we have been dis-
coursing, who or what divided it into molecules,

152 Anti-Theistic Theories.

who or what impressed upon them this necessity
of running into organic forms, he has no answer.
Science is also mute in reply to these questions.
But if the materialist is confounded and science
rendered dumb, who else is entitled to answer.?
To whom has the secret been revealed t Let us
lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance,
one and all. Perhaps the mystery may resolve
itself into knowledge at some future day. The
process of things upon this earth has been one of
amelioration. It is a long way from the iguanodon
and his contemporaries to the president and mem-
bers of the British Association. And whether we
regard the improvement from the scientific or from
the theological point of view, as the result of pro-
gressive development, or as the result of succes-
sive exhibitions of creative energy, neither view-
entitles us to assume that man's present faculties
end the series — that the process of amelioration
stops at him. A time may therefore come when
this ultra -scientific region by which we are now
enfolded, may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to
human, investigation." Now, what is the precise
meaning of these words } Is it not that although
until the far-distant future age arrives when there
are beings on the earth as much superior to the
president and members of the British Association
as these are to the iguanodon and his contempo-
raries, no reason be found for believing that matter

special Objections to Materialism. 153

is eternal, self-active, and endowed with the pro-
mise and potency of all order, life, and thought,
yet men may even now speak and reason as if
they were quite certain that it is ? But surely, if
this be what it means, "the long way from the
iguanodon and his contemporaries to the presi-
dent and the members of the British Association "
has been as conspicuously one of progress in
absurdity as in science. A man who has 'no rea-
son for believing that matter is eternal, must not
merely bow his head and acknowledge his igno-
rance, but he must cease ascribing eternity to
matter, and confess that he has no right to be a
materialist. If, notwithstanding his avowed igno-
rance and the evidence adduced to prove matter
created, he habitually assumes that matter is eter-
nal, what else can be said than that he arbitrar-
ily chooses to believe matter eternal, because he
would otherwise be bound to believe it created }

How is it that materialists are in general will-
ing to take their stand in such a position ? Is it
because they cannot find one more tenable ? In
other words, is it because the only reasons that
can be given for believing matter eternal are
worse than none } Perhaps it is. At all events,
the only reasons that have been given are so weak
that the slightest examination is sufficient com-
pletely to discredit them.

A German materialist (Dr Lowenthal) gives the

154 Anti-Theistic Theories.

following as an argument : " What has no end can
have no beginning. What cannot be destroyed
can also not be created. Matter cannot be de-
stroyed, and consequently cannot be created ; it
is without end, and therefore likewise without
beginning — is eternal." But what right can any
person have to assume that "what has no end can
have no beginning".^ The words I have just
quoted may have no end, but certainly they had
a beginning ; they may be eternal a parte post
although they were not eternal a parte ante, but
originated with Dr Lowenthal on a definite day
not many years ago. The assertion that " matter
cannot be destroyed" needs proof, yet receives
none. There is no warrant for saying more than
that matter cannot be destroyed by natural powers
and processes. There can be no warrant, there-
fore, for inferring more than that matter cannot
be created by natural powers and processes. But
this inference is scarcely worth the trouble of
drawing. It is unnecessary to take any round-
about way to arrive at so easily accessible a truth
as that matter cannot create or destroy itself. But
the gulf between this plain truth and the assertion
that matter cannot be created or destroyed is im-
mense, although materialists have pretended to
identify them, being unable to find a passage from
the one to the other.

Biichner, Moleschott, and some other material-

special Objections to Materialism. 1 5 5

ists, teach that physical science has proved that
matter is absolutely incapable of increase or dimi-
nution, creation or annihilation. Physical science
has done nothing of the kind. It refuses to draw
absolute conclusions. It carefully abides within
the conditions of experience and experiment. It
certifies that matter is undestroyed by any of the
processes of nature or any of the arts of man, and
it infers that what has not destroyed it in the past
will not destroy it in the future. It disowns, how-
ever, the inference that matter cannot be destroyed
or created even by infinite power. It cannot afford
so glaringly to violate the laws of logic. It does
not pretend to be able to tell what infinite power
can do, and still less what it cannot do.

The assertion which Biichner and Moleschott
erroneously represent as a generalisation of science,
Mr Herbert Spencer far more erroneously pro-
nounces " an a priori cognition of the highest
order." Of course, neither this nor any other
cognition of matter is an a priori cognition even
of the lowest order. Matter is only known a
posteriori, and as essentially contingent. No
number of the uniformities of experience relative
to the nature and properties of matter has been
shown to produce one of those absolute unifor-
mities of thought which are entitled to be called
necessary or ct priori truths. We may not be able
to conceive a process of creation, the manner in

156 Anti-Theistic Theories.

which the quantity of matter might be absolutely-
increased, nor a process of annihilation, the manner
in which the quantity of matter might be abso-
lutely diminished, but we have no difficulty in
conceiving that there should be more or less mat-
ter in the universe than there is. It requires no
great stretch of imagination to suppose the whole
of empty space filled with matter, or no matter at
all in space. He who denies that one can truly
think the quantity of matter to be increased or
diminished — that one can believe that matter has
been created or that it will be annihilated — has
allowed his reason to be too much influenced by
the impressions of sense, and has signally confused
empirical generalisation with necessary truth.

The reason most commonly given for regarding
matter as eternal is that iti creation is inconceiv-
able. Is, then, creation inconceivable 1 Not in the
sense of essentially unthinkable, — not in the sense
that a centreless circle or triangular square cannot
be conceived, — not in the only sense which would
fix creation down as impossible. Is it even incon-
ceivable in the sense of necessarily unimaginable
by the human mind } It may be so. Perhaps
the mind of man with its present faculties could
not be made to comprehend the nature of an act
of creation. But we have no right to affirm that
such is the case. Its proof would, in fact, require
the very knowledge which is pronounced to be

special Objections to Materialism. 157

unattainable. If the mind cannot prove creation
to be inherently absurd or self - contradictory, it
cannot be entitled to pronounce it unknowable ;
for it knows no other unknowable than the absurd,
and it can have no right to affirm anything to be
unknowable which it does not know to be so. To
know anything to be unknowable is a self-contra-
diction, unless by the unknowable is meant merely
the self-contradictory. We certainly know far too
little about the nature of matter — if there be any
matter except the manifestation of force to mind —
to assert that we could not be made to understand
its creation. We are merely entitled to say that
we do not understand it, and cannot understand
it until our knowledge of the nature of matter is
greatly increased. The inconceivability of crea-
tion is, in fact, no real unthinkableness, but the
natural effect of a weakness of imagination w-hich
is amply explained by inexperience and igno-
rance. It is no reason whatever for setting aside
the arguments urged by the theist in favour of
the belief in creation. The materialist himself
believes in a multitude of facts which are in the
same sense equally inconceivable.

It may be remarked, in the next place, that
materialism is inconsistent with its own theory of
knowledge. It implies that all knowledge is ob-
tained through the bodily organs of sense ; that
we know nothing except what our senses tell us ;

158 Anti-Theistic Theories.

that the limits of sensible experience are the limits
of knowledge. Yet it starts, and necessarily starts,
with assertions manifestly at variance with this
doctrine. It affirms either the existence of atoms
or the infinite divisibility of matter. Have atoms
ever been reached by any sense t No, they are
inaccessible to sense. Can sense prove the infinite
divisibility of matter t No ; the very notion of
sense possessing such a power is absurd. Then,
matter is affirmed to be eternal. But is eternity
an object of sense } Has any materialist seen or
touched eternity .'' Has any creature ever had an
eternal sensation t Again, no. The very men
who assert that matter is eternal are found at
other times assuring us that we have no idea of
eternity, on the ground that all our knowledge is
derived from sensation. What sort of system is it,
however, which is thus inconsistent and self-con-
tradictory at its very foundation t Surely it is one
little entitled to be considered either satisfactory
or scientific.

Again, materialism, as I have already indicated,
has no reasonable account to give us of force. It
is not required, of course, to give us an account
of the absolute nature of force in itself Force
is known only through its effects — only from
experience. More, therefore, is not asked from
materialism than that it shall give an intelligible,
non-contradictory view of the relation of force to

special Objections to Materialism. 159

matter. But instead of meeting this demand it
represents their relationship only in ways which
reason and science refuse to sanction. The ma-
jority of materialists assert that force is inherent
in matter ; that matter is essentially active ; that
matter and force are inseparable, and have co-
existed from all eternity. But this assertion is
the denial of a fundamental law of physical science
— the law stated by Newton in the words, " Every
body perseveres in its state of rest or of moving
uniformly in a straight line, except in so far as it
is made to change that state by external forces."
This law is conclusively proved, both experimen-
tally and by the consequences involved in deny-
ing it. If true, however, matter is in itself inert,
inactive, without power of originating motion or
producing change; and the view of the relation of
matter and force, assumed as axiomatically evi-
dent by a host of materialists, is anti-scientific and
erroneous in the highest degree. If true, the argu-
ment of Aristotle for a first mover is plainly a
very strong one. If a body cannot move itself it
must be moved by a cause distinct from itself, and
this external cause, if a body, must be moved by
another cause, and so on in a regress which, not to
be ad infinittim, must end in a cause which is self-
acting, and consequently not a body. It has been
attempted to meet this argument by affirming that
matter is endowed with a property of attraction.

i6o Anti-Theistic Theories,

in virtue of which, while each separate molecule
of matter is inert, two molecules are active, each
being a cause of motion in the other. But the
reply is inadequate, as it ignores two important
considerations. The first is, that inertia and at-
traction are not facts of the same rank or value.
Inertia is presupposed in all the phenomena of
attraction, is implied in every correct conception
of mechanical motion, and can clearly neither be
eliminated from the notion of matter nor reduced
to any simpler property of matter. Attraction,
on the other hand, as a cause of gravity, as an
efficient property of matter, is an occult and hypo-
thetical quality, in the existence of which few men
of science very seriously believe, although they
feel themselves incompetent to displace it by any
more plausible conjecture. The vast majority of
physicists will readily subscribe Newton's words
to Bentley: "You sometimes speak of gravity as
essential and inherent to matter. Pray, do not
ascribe that notion to me ; for the cause of gravity
is what I do not pretend to know." Many of them
will not refuse assent even to his much stronger
statement: "That gravity should be innate, in-
herent, and essential to matter, so that one body
may act upon another at a distance through a
vacuum, without the m.ediation of anything else,
by and through which their action and force may
be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great

special Objections to Materialism. i6r

an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in
philosophical matters a competent faculty of think-
ing, can ever fall into it." - The materialist is not
entitled, then, to assume that the phenomena
ascribed to attraction will not in process of time
be explained by the general laws of motion. Let
us suppose, however, that attraction, instead of
being thus proved to be a useless fiction, is ascer-
tained to be a real property and efficient cause.
What is it precisely that in this case has been
established .'' Only my second consideration —
only a conclusion which materialism cannot ac-
cept. Matter is thereby proved to be a something
which cannot have its reason of existence in itself.
No molecule, on this supposition, is what it is, or
is moved as it is, of itself The cause of the posi-
tion and state of each molecule is out of itself in
all the other molecules. This dependence of each
upon all must have a reason which embraces all,
yet which can neither be in the parts, since each
part is dependent — nor in the whole, since it can
have nothing which it has not derived from the
parts w^hich compose it.

The hypothesis that matter is essentially active
seems not to be tenable. Is there any more plaus-
ible view as to the relation of matter to force
which the materialist can adopt } Apparently
not. The conjecture which has sometimes been

L

1 62 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

thrown out, and which Dr Lowenthal has deliber-
ately adopted — that force is not essential to matter,
but the result of its aggregation — is too ridiculous
for discussion. Force can no more be accounted
for by aggregation than the strength of a horse
can be accounted for by the motion of the cart
which it draws. Aggregation presupposes, and
therefore cannot explain, force. But no other
supposition appears to remain except that matter
has the power of putting itself in motion, — has
in some degree the faculty of volition or self-
determination. This, the supposition which Epi-
curus and Lucretius adopted, is growing in favour
with modern materialists. Anthropomorphism in
physics was probably never more prevalent than
at present, especially among those who denounce
anthropomorphism in theology. Confidently deny
freewill to man and confidently ascribe it to
atoms, and you stand a good chance just now of
being widely acknowledged as a great physical
philosopher, and are sure at least of being hon-
oured as an "advanced thinker." But nonsense
does not cease to be nonsense when it becomes
popular. The notion of an atom of matter putting
itself in motion is a still more glaring contradiction
of the law of inertia than an atom eternally and
necessarily active. It also confounds matter and
mind, and even nature and miracle. It may be
taught as a truth of physical science, but it is

special Objections to Materialism. 163

in reality a delusion due to metaphysical night-
mare.^ ''

Further, materialism leaves unexplained and
inexplicable the order, laws, and harmony in
nature. Material elements chaotically combined
and material forces working blindly, atoms jostling
together at random and powers unconditioned and
uncorrelated by intelligence with a view to an end,
cannot be rationally thought of as producing these
things. The universe is a result which implies
that its hosts of constituents have been prepared
and arranged, and that the hosts of forces associ-
ated with them have been directed and marshalled,
by a Divine Intelligence. Order universally reigns,
where elements out of which confusion might have
arisen and might still arise are present and abun-
dant ; all things proceed under the influence of
laws, unfailing and unerring, which apply at once
to the minutest part and to the mightiest whole ;
contingencies are constantly provided for by a
system of compensations of the most elaborate
and exquisite description ; and of these facts, as
I endeavoured to show when treating of the design
argument, the materialist can either give no ex-
planation or devises explanations which are futile
in the extreme.

Is life also a fact which presents a problem that
materialism cannot solve } Is there a chasm be-

^ See Appendix XVI.

164 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

tween the dead and the living which cannot be
bridged over by mere matter and its laws ? The
debate on this question is at present so extremely
keen that its importance in a religious reference is,
it seems to me, in danger of being exaggerated.
Materialism must be refuted before we reach this
point, if it is ever to be refuted. Were sponta-
neous generation proved, materialism would re
main as far from established as before. Those
who are certain that there is a God may with
perfect composure leave it to science to ascertain
under what conditions He has caused life to ap-
pear. In fact, the question as to the mode of the
origination of life, although of immense scientific
interest, is of very subordinate religious signifi-
cance. It is, further, a question which is often
answered in a dogmatic and anti-scientific spirit.
Many assert that it is absolutely impossible that
life should originate from the interaction of mo-
lecular forces, while materialists in general de-
mand that the contrary should be conceded from
the outset. Both parties are in error. We can-
not tell what is possible or impossible in such a
case, prior to a comprehensive knowledge, such as
science seeks to attain, of all that actually is. We
have even no right, it seems to me, either to deny
or to admit that it is conceivable that under cer-
tain conditions life may originate in inorganic
matter. Our power of conception is dependent

special Objections to Materialism. 165

on our means of conception, our data, our ac-
quaintance with relevant facts. What we cannot
conceive to-day science may make conceivable to-
morrow ; but we must not anticipate to-day what
belongs to to-morrow.

Let us appeal, then, merely to facts and science.
Do they afford any grounds for the materialistic
explanation of the origin of life } Certainly not.
So far as our knowledge extends, there is not a
single fact to warrant the hypothesis that life has
originated from mere matter, from what is inert
and inactive. The spontaneous generation of life
from the lifeless has often been asserted, and has
sometimes been attempted to be proved, but un-
doubtedly the verdict of science is that organisms
arise only from organisms, that life is only pro-
duced by that which lives. Endeavours like those
of Crosse, and Pouchet, and Bastian, to establish
the contrary, have only demonstrated their own
futility, and increased the probability that oijiui
viviini^^-^^ vivo is a law of nature which has no
exceptions. No man has ever changed any in-
organic matter into a living vegetable without the
help of a pre-existing vegetable germ ; nor vege-
table matter into animal, without an animal germ.
All known facts give their testimony against spon-
taneous generation.

Further, the phenomena of life are very peculiar
and quite unexplained by the mechanics and

1 66 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

chemistry of matter. In every living thing, for
example, there is a working as a whole, and a
working from within, and a working to an end, to
which we see nothing similar in the merely inor-
ganic world. Crystals display geometrical regu-
larity and symmetry and variety of species or
type, but, as Miiller says, " There is in the crystal
no relation between its configuration and the ac-
tivity of the whole." It has the unity which results
from juxtaposition and arrangement, but in no
degree the unity of reciprocal action and influence
which belongs alike to the simplest and the most
complex of living beings. In every plant and
animal the whole is not merely composed of the
parts, but acts as a whole through and by its parts,
each part needing, conditioning, and influencing
the whole, and the whole needing, conditioning,
and influencing the parts. In the inorganic world
forces are never seen acting thus, and nothing that
we know of the inorganic powers of nature can
reasonably lead us to suppose that they are ca-
pable of acting thus. Again, all dead bodies are
wholly passive, wholly subject to the physical and
chemical forces which act upon them, entirely
moved from without ; but all living beings, so far as
observation extends, are only partially subject to
these forces, displaying in addition a certain power
of suspending or modifying their operations, of
employing them instead of obeying them, of acting

special Objections to Matcrialisvi. 167

from within as well as of being acted on from
without. In this respect every living plant and
animal is unlike every dead plant and animal, and
every inorganic object. Now, how can this power
of acting from within, — one to which there is
nothing properly analogous in lifeless matter, —
come from without, from lifeless matter.^ How
can mechanical and chemical forces result in a
force which resists and rules themselves, and which
enables that which possesses it to act of and for
itself, — in a faculty of adaptation to circumstances,
of selective assimilation, growth, inherent renewal,
and reproduction } Further, all that is living is,
what nothing that is dead is, an end unto itself
A living being is no mere mean, but to a large
extent an immanent whole — that is, one which has
its reason of being, its ends of action, in itself It
is a unity of which all the elements, parts, and
energies are co-ordinated by a central power to
its self-preservation and self-perfection. But this
implies plan and purpose, thought, foresight, and
prophecy ; and how are these to be accounted for
by mere matter and motion }

I might appropriately, if time permitted, confirm
and supplement what has just been said, by point-
ing out in the processes of nutrition and growth,
in the healing and repairing of injured parts, and
in propagation or reproduction, a number of dis-
tinctive characteristics which seem imperatively to

1 68 Anti-Theistic Theories.

demand for their explanation more than merely
mechanical and chemical causes. Enough has
been said, however, I hope, to show that when Mr
Spencer, or any other person, tells us that the
argument against the materialistic hypothesis of
the origin of life is one in which ignorance is made
to do the part of knowledge, he gives a very un-
fair and inadequate view of it. The argument is
based, first, on the universal and uniform experi-
ence which establishes the law omne vivum ex vivo;
and secondly, on what observation and science in-
form us are the properties of inorganic powers on
the one hand, and the distinctive features of life
on the other. It is, consequently, based wholly
on knowledge. And it is an argument of great
strength, completely satisfying all the requirements
of the methods both of agreement and of difference.
Like all other arguments, however, as to the laws
of nature, it does not demonstrate the impossibility
— does not absolutely exclude the possibility —
that the law may in some unknown case or cases
not have held good. This bare possibility Mr
Spencer and the materialists eagerly lay hold of,
and actually oppose and prefer to the positive
argument. Because they can fancy that the
powers of inorganic nature may once have acted
in a way in which they are never known to have
acted, and in which they certainly never act now,
they conclude that these powers did really once

special Objections to Materialism. 169

act in that exceptional, not to say miraculous,
manner. I should like to see it shown that tJiis is
not to make ignorance do the part of knowledge.
In my opinion, the materialist charges upon his
opponent the vice of his own reasoning.

But recent discoveries of science, we are told,
go far to prove that there is no such chasm as is
alleged between the dead and the living, the inor-
ganic and organic. In support of this affirmation,
however, real and relevant evidence cannot be
found. It is true that until recently many chemists
supposed that no organic substance could be arti-
ficially composed from inorganic constituents, and
also true that a multitude of organic substances
have now been so formed. The inference is that
chemists may err and may have their errors cor-
rected by experience and investigation, but cer-
tainly not that a single forward step has been
taken in bridging over the gulf between life and
death. Suppose every organic substance — even
brain, blood, nerve, albumen, protoplasm itself —
to be resolved, as I doubt not every organic sub-
stance may and will be resolved, into inorganic
elements, and what follows if out of the elements
involved no substance can be built up which is not
dead, not one which manifests a single vital pro-
perty } Simply that there is nothing even in the
most elaborate organic structures, or in the cor-
poreal parts and elements most closely associated

170 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

with vitality, which is essentially different from
mere dust of the earth ; that the entire body of
man himself is but "dust and ashes," and that
when you reach what is highest and most admi-
rable in it, the border of the gulf between matter
and the living soul is merely touched. How can
any person be so illogical as to describe this as
filling up or bridging over the gulf?

The assertion sometimes made that life has
been proved to be merely a form of mechanical
and chemical force, is without the least founda-
tion. What has been proved is, that life does not
create force, and that vital actions are carried on
by means of mechanical and chemical forces. Life
has been shown to do no mechanical or chemical
work itself, but it has not been shown that it does
not determine the direction in which mechanical
and chemical forces work when they are within
the living organism ; and until that has been
shown, nothing has been done to prove that it
does not perform a function to which the ordinary
physical powers are incompetent. The driver of
a railway train does not add to the force generated
in its engine, but he has notwithstanding a place
and use. A master mason may expend no part
of his strength in the actual construction of a
house while he is superintending his labourers
and builders, but who would consider the proof
of that to be equivalent to a demonstration that

special Objections to Materialism. 1 7 1

he had been of no service, or was even a purely
mythical personage ?

The argument from evolution to spontaneous
generation is clearly not a strong one. The former
may suggest a presumption in favour of the latter,
but this cannot supply the place of, or warrant us
to dispense with, direct and positive proof.

Is there a definite boundary- line between the
plant and the animal ? Is the organic world divis-
ible into a vegetable and animal kingdom, or is
there an intermediate kingdom protista ? These
two questions, it seems to me, are irrelevant in the
materialistic controversy, and it is to be regretted
that they should have been drawn into it, espe-
cially as biology, to which they properly belong,
is not yet prepared to give them definite answers,
and the danger of making ignorance do the part
of knowledge in discussing them is extremely
great.^

There is, then, a gulf between the dead and the
living over which materialism throws no bridge.
Science must confess that it needs a power not
present in matter to account for life.

Mind, I remark next, presents to materialism a
still greater difficulty. No kind of reasonable con-
ception can be formed of a process by which mo-
lecular changes will pass into or produce sensation,
pleasure or pain, perception, memory, judgment,
^ See Appendix XVII.

172 Anti-Theistic Theories.

desire, or will. This objection to materialism was
admirably put by Professor Tyndall — in words
which he has not yet retracted, and which he will
find it hard to refute, should he wish to do so —
when he wrote : " The passage from the physics of
the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness
is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought
and a definite molecular action in the brain occur
simultaneously ; we do not possess the intellectual
organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ,
which would enable us to pass, by a process of
reasoning, from the one phenomena to the other.
They appear together, but we do not know why.
Were our minds and senses so expanded, strength-
ened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and
feel the very molecules of the brain; were we
capable of following all their motions, all their
grouping, all their electrical discharges, if such
there be ; and were we intimately acquainted with
the corresponding states of thought and feeling, —
we should probably be as far as ever from the solu-
tion of the problem, How are these physical pro-
cesses connected with the facts of consciousness .?
The chasm between the two classes of phenomena
would still remain intellectually impassable." Ma-
terialism presents itself as an intelligible theory of
the universe, and yet it has not succeeded in ex-
plaining a single fact in the world of conscious-
ness. It hopes to be able some day to show us

special Objections to Materialism. 173

future Shakespeares "potential in the fires of the
sun," but as yet it cannot find the sensations of a
protanioeba even in its own protoplasm.^

There are two other objections to materialism
which are as strong as any that have been urged,
but which I must be content merely to indicate.

First, then, materialism is inconsistent with the
testimony of our moral consciousness, with the
facts of our moral nature. We perceive a distinc-
tion between right and wrong ; we feel that we are
free to choose between them ; that we are respon-
sible, however, for our choice ; that we are praise-
worthy or blameworthy, &c. These perceptions
and feelings are facts as certain as any in the
world, and the theory which cannot honestly ac-
cept them ought to be rejected. But materiahsm
cannot. It must deny them, or explain them away,
or invent untenable hypotheses as to their origin.

Secondly, materialism refuses satisfaction to
the spiritual wants, aspirations, and convictions
of men. It denies the existence of God and of
the soul. It acknowledges nothing that is higher
than the seen, or better than the temporal. It
resolves reliq-ion in all its len^^th and breadth into
a delusion. It openly threatens to turn it out of
the w^orld. But, as we have seen, reason and
morality are to be turned out also. Only when
reason, morality, and religion have all been got

^ See Appendix XVII L

174 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

rid of, will materialism have the world to itself.
And then the world will not be worth having.^

Let me conclude by entirely dissenting from
words of Professor Huxley, which I have already
quoted in this lecture. His assertion that "it is
utterly impossible to prove that anything what-
ever may not be the effect of a material and neces-
sary cause," is an arbitrary and unphilosophical
dogma which need not, however, disquiet us, since
up to the present hour no single fact of order, life,
mind, morality, or religion, has been proved to be
the effect of a material cause. His assertion that
human logic is incompetent to show that any act
is really spontaneous has no other ground than
his strange misconception of what is meant by a
spontaneous act, — than the fancy that "a really
spontaneous act is one which, by the assumption,
has no cause." His assertion that "any one who
is acquainted with the history of science will ad-
mit that its progress has, in all ages, meant, and
now more than ever means, the extension of the
province of what we call matter and causation,
and the concomitant gradual banishment from all
regions of human thought of what we call spirit
and spontaneity," only proves that he is more a
follower of Comte than he is himself aware of, and
has incautiously adopted one of that author's most
superficial and erroneous generalisations. His pro-
phecy as to the future would have been differ-
^ See Appendix XIX.

special Objections to Materialism. 175

ent if he had studied the past more thoroughly
and independently, although, perhaps, the wisest
course would have been not to prophesy at all.
He has erred in thinking that it is the progress of
materialism which alarms its opponents ; it is its
spread — a very different thing — which alarms them ;
its rapid diffusion when it is making no real pro-
gress ; the humiliating fact that so many not un-
educated persons are thoughtless enough to believe
its proud and empty promises, although there are
no achievements to justify them. He tells us
that " many of the best minds of these days watch
what they conceive to be the progress of material-
ism, in such fear and powerless anger as a savage
feels when, during an eclipse, the great shadow
creeps over the face of the sun," I thought that
during an eclipse it was over the face of the earth
that the great shadow crept ; but that is of no
consequence. This is, that, although where the
shadow of materialism creeps there may be many
to believe that there is no sun, the sun is by no
means affected either by the shadow or by the
foolish unbelief which accompanies it, but remains
where and what it was, and when the shadow is
past will be seen to be bright, beneficent, mighty,
and terrible as ever. They who believe so cannot
crouch and tremble before a shadow, whatever
those may do who believe that the shadow is more
than a shadow, — that it is greater than the sun, —
that it will be eternal.

1/6 Antl-Theistic Theories,

LECTURE v.

POSITIVISM.

I,

Positivism is to be the subject of the present
lecture. It is a doctrine which is closely related
both in history and character to scepticism on
the one hand, and to materialism on the other.
It owes its existence to the partly concurrent
and partly counteractive operation of these two
theories. It is a link between them ; a cross
or hybrid in which their respective qualities are
combined, although incapable of being truly har-
monised.

The term positivism has been objected to both
on philological and logical grounds, but any faults
it may have are not of a seriously dangerous kind,
and it is my wish to avoid all controversies merely
or mainly verbal. It was not, perhaps, a term
greatly needed, and it may not be the best which
could have been devised ; but now that it has

The System of Covite. 177

been invented and so widely accepted and em-
ployed, it cannot be got rid of, and we must
be content simply to guard against its being
applied in ways calculated to create or foster
prejudice. It was put in circulation by M.
Auguste_C^mte,, a man of remarkable intellec-
tual power, but also of immoderate intellectual
self-conceit and arrogance. He was born in 1798,
and died in 1857. There is an able biography of
him by M. Littre, one of the most illustrious
veterans of contemporary French science and
literature; and there are a multitude of sketches
of his life, executed with different degrees of care
and skill. His voluminous writings have been
translated into our language by a few of his Eng-
lish disciples with self-denying zeal, and in a man-
ner which leaves nothing to be desired.

M. Comte has no valid claim to be considered
the originator of the theory to which he gave a
new name and a vigorous impulse. It was taught
in all its essential principles by Protagoras and
others in Greece more than four hundred years
before the Christian era. Positivism is the phe-
nomenalism of the Greek sophists revived and
adapted to the demands of the present age.
Hume and Kant and Saint Simon were posi-
tivists before the appearance of positivism. It
is scarcely possible to find in Comte's writings
an original view — except on the subject of scien-

M

178 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

tific method — which is generally accepted by
those who are called his disciples. He formed,
indeed, a great many original notions, — notions
his own by right of paternity or creation, — but
these children of his brain few even of his warm
admirers have felt inclined to adopt. They are
the mere vagaries of an individual mind, and must
be left out of account by those who are judging
of the general doctrine of positivism. But al-
though all the chief ideas of Comte had been
clearly and repeatedly enunciated by earlier
thinkers, he had great strength and skill in
systematising doctrines and elaborately apply-
ing principles, and his influence has been both
extensive and intense.

The Positivism which he taught, taken as a
whole, is at once a philosophy, a polity, and a
religion. It professes to systematise all scientific
knowledge, to organise all industrial and social
activities, and to satisfy all spiritual aspirations
and affections. It undertakes to explain the pastj
to exhibit the good and evil, strength and weak-
ness, of the present, and to forecast the future ; to
assign to every science, every large scientific gen-
eralisation, every principle and function of human
nature, and every great social force, its appropri-
ate place ; to construct a system of thought inclu-
sive of all well-established truths, and to delineate
a scheme of political and religious life in which

TJic System of Covite. 179

duty and happiness, order and progress, opinion
and emotion, will be reconciled and caused to
work together for the good alike of the individual
and of society. It sets before itself, in a word, an
aim of the very largest and grandest kind con-
ceivable ; and as Comte believed that he had been
signally successful in performing his mighty task,
we need hardly wonder that he should have boldly
claimed to have rendered to his race the services
both of a St Paul and an Aristotle.

Is the system as consistent as it is undoubt-
edly comprehensive } Comtists themselves cannot
agree as to the answer which ought to be given
to this question. A few of the more enthusiastic
and thoroughgoing among them — such as Dr
Bridges, Mr Congreve, and, in a lesser degree,
perhaps, Mr Harrison — reply in the affirmative,
and accept the system as a whole. A much larger
number, of whom, since the death of Mr J. S.
Mill, M. Littre is the most conspicuous represen-
tative, answer in the negative, and will have
nothing to do with the positivist religion. I
have no wish to take part in this controversy,
which is of no very great importance, and in re-
gard to which, besides, I have elsewhere stated
the conclusion at which I have arrived. As, how-
ever, the philosophy and religion of Comte are
both anti-theistic, and yet, in my opinion, incon-
sistent with each other, I must consider them

i8o Ajiti-Theistic Theories.

separately, — the one in so far as it would simply
push theism aside, and the other in so far as it
would provide a substitute for it.

What, then, is the attitude of the positive
philosophy towards religion ? As represented by
Comte, it may be thus described. We know,
and can know, nothing except physical pheno-
mena and their laws. The senses are the sources
of all true thinking, and we can know nothing
except the phenomena which they apprehend,
and the relations of sequence and resemblance
in which these phenomena stand to one another.
Mental phenomena can all be resolved into ma-
terial phenomena, and there is no such thing dis-
coverable as either efficient or final causation, as
either an origin or purpose in the world, as, con-
sequently, either a creative or providential intelli-
gence. The mind in its progress necessarily finds
out that phenomena cannot be reasonably referred
to supernatural agents, as at a later period that
they cannot be referred to occult causes, but that
they must be accepted as they present themselves
to the senses, and arranged according to their
relationships of sequence or coexistence, similar-
ity or dissimilarity. Wherever theological specu-
lation is found, there thought is in its infancy.

Now, the first remark which this suggests is,
that it is not consistent even as a theory of posi-
tivism. It is to a considerable extent a mate-

Positivism in relation to Rcli^c'ion. i8i

<i

rialistic theory, and so far as it is materialism
it is not properly positivism. Materialism sup-
poses matter to be more than a phenomenon. It
supposes it to be a substance and a cause. The
positivist may answer that such phenomena as
feelings and thoughts are not resolved into ma-
terial substances or causes, but into material
phenomena. The self-contradiction, however, is
not thus to be got rid of. If we know merely
phenomena, we never can be warranted to say
that those which we call mental can be resolved
into those w^hich we call physical. We can only
be w^arranted in saying that the two classes of
phenomena are related as coexistent or successive,
similar or dissimilar. Comte went far beyond this,
and therefore far beyond a self- consistent posi-
tivism— i.e., phenomenalism.

Further, the limitation or reduction of pheno-
mena to material phenomena is unwarranted. We
have a direct and immediate knowledge of think-
ing, feeling, and willing, and simply as phenomena
these are markedly distinct from the phenomena
called material. They are never, as material phe-
nomena always are, the objects of our senses. But
we are at least as sure of their existence as of
the existence of material phenomena, and to deny
or overlook their existence is to reject or ignore
that which is most indubitable. There is no tes-
timony so strong as the direct immediate testi-

1 82 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

mony of consciousness. When we feel or think
or will, when we perceive or remember, love or
hate, we know that we do so with a certainty the
most absolute. The consciousness which a man
has of any state of mind at the moment when
he experiences it, is not sufficient to inform him
whether the state be simple or complex, original
or derivative — whether it be coextensive with
human consciousness or extend into the con-
sciousness of the lower animals, or be peculiar
to the consciousness of a portion of the human
race or to the individual himself; nor is it suffi-
cient to establish whether there be anything out-
wardly corresponding to it, but it is sufficient to
establish beyond all doubt that there is such a
fact in the mental experience of the individual.
The most thorough scepticism cannot challenge
its evidence when limited to this sphere. It is
only, in fact, at this barrier that absolute scepti-
cism is arrested. Absolute scepticism refuses to
admit that in external or sense perception things
appear to us as they actually — i.e., in themselves
— are, but not that internal or self consciousness
apprehends its objects as they really exist. In
external perception what apprehends is mind, and
what is apprehended belongs to an altogether
different world, which may or may not correspond
to it ; whereas in internal perception the object
itself falls within the consciousness, exists only as

Positivism in relation to Relizio?i

i>

it is known and is known only as it exists, con-
sciousness and existence being here coincident,
and in fact identical. Internal consciousness
thus carries with it stronger evidence than sense.
The so-called positivism, therefore, which affirms
that the objects of sense are the only phenomena
apprehended, instead of keeping close to facts, as
it pretends to do, contradicts the facts which the
experience of every moment of conscious exist-
ence testifies to in the most direct and decisive
manner. Its most obvious characteristic is the
disregard of facts. A number of the adherents of
positivism have, consequently, left the company of
Comte at this point. They have insisted, very
properly, that mental states are positive facts, and
the appropriate data of science no less than phys-
ical processes.^

The attempt to defend Comte's position by
maintaining that the phenomena of thought, feel-
ing, and volition are not denied, but only referred
to the bodily organisation, and thereby included
among material phenomena, fails in two respects.
In the first place, it cannot justify what it main-
tains. Mental states may have physical conditions
and antecedents, but no mental state has ever
been resolved into what is physical. In the second
place, if consciousness could be fully explained by
organisation, that would prove the truth of mate-

1 See Appendix XX.

184 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

rialism, which, as I have already said, is inconsis-
tent with positivism. When positivism says more
than that the phenomena called mental are so and
so related to the phenomena called material — when
it says that the former can be referred to or
resolved into the latter, so as to be really material
phenomena, — it supposes to be true what it pro-
fesses to deny — viz., the reality of causes and sub-
stances ; it supposes that matter is not an aggre-
gate of phenomena, but a substance or cause, or
both.

This leads me to remark that positivism is not
thorough. It goes only so far as is convenient
for it, not so far as it logically ought. Comte as-
sumes material phenomena to be the primary and
ultimate known existences, — those from which
science must start, and on which it must rest.
But the least reflection shows us that the assump-
tion is wholly groundless. The first thing which
scepticism has swallowed up has always been the
world of sense — these material phenomena. It
has always found that if the senses are our sole
means of knowing, the sole things known must be
sensations, and sensations are states of conscious-
ness— phenomena of mind, not of matter. If we
know only phenomena, it is not material pheno-
mena we know, but mental phenomena. What we
call material phenomena are in that case mere
illusions. The materialistic positivism of Comte

Positivism in relation to Religion. 185

is bound to abdicate in favour of the idealistic
positivism of Mill, which confines all our know-
ledge to mental phenomena.

This brings us decidedly farther on the way
to the goal which, nolens volens, positivism must
arrive at — viz., scepticism. It is not belief in God
only which it must discard, but belief in matter
also ; and not belief merely in matter in some
special philosophical sense, not belief merely in
some material essence or substance distinct from
phenomena, but in material phenomena themselves.
If we know only phenomena, we know only mental
phenomena ; the whole universe is on that sup-
position an aggregate of states of mind, and when
we think of time or space, sea or sky, as without
us we are self- deluded ; there is and can be no
knowledge of what is without. Mr Mill, it is true,
tries to preserve something, and to show that we
may be philosophers and yet believe in a sort of
•'outer" or material world. We may believe in it,
he thinks, as "a permanent possibility of sensa-
tions." But no. A possibility is not a phenome-
non. If we know only what is phenomenal, we
cannot know what is possible as distinct from and
explanatory of the phenomenal. Nor can a mere
experience of phenomena inform us that any of
them will be permanent, since experience is neces-
sarily limited to the actual, to what is and to what
has been. Indeed the phrase "a permanent pos-

1 86 Anti-Theistic Theories.

sibility of sensation" is unintelligible. It must
have been meant either for "a permanent possi-
bility of producing sensations " or '' a permanent
possibility of experiencing- sensations." But mat-
ter is certainly no possibility of experiencing sen-
sations. That matter is sentient is a groundless
fancy, not a positive fact, although in the course
of the ages a few thinkers and dreamers have en-
tertained the notion. And matter cannot be a
possibility of producing sensations in the view of
a consistent positivism which refuses to recognise
causation, efficiency. A consistent positivism must
be a purely idealistic positivism. Even the dim
ghost of matter which Mr Mill would retain must
be discarded.

And it will not suffice. Mind must likewise go.
Mind cannot be identified with its phenomena. If
we know only phenomena we know only a series
of states of consciousness. We can, on that sup-
position, have no right to say, as Mr Mill does,
that a mind is ''a thread of consciousness." It can
only be a general term for a succession of states of
consciousness unconnected by any thread. We can
have no right, if positivism be true, to use language
like this : " As body is the mysterious something
which excites the mind to feel, so mind is the
mysterious something which feels and thinks." It
is not the language of positivism to point us to
mysterious somethings. On the contrary, as long

Positivism in relation to Religion. 187

as it has any regard for consistency, it will warn
us to have nothing to do with " mysterious some-
things," but to keep close to experienced pheno-
mena. Positivism must give up, then, both matter
and mind. What remains.? Phenomena — but
these reduced to states of consciousness which
have neither object nor subject, — states of con-
sciousness which seem to be, but are not, what
they seem, — states of consciousness of a kind
which consciousness is unconscious of, and which
thought cannot conceive. It is to this bourn that
positivism must inevitably come. Reason can
only lead it to annihilation,

Comte lays his interdict on all speculation as
to the origin of the world. He condemns both
theism and atheism, both the affirmation and the
denial of the existence of God. Belief and dis-
belief are, he thinks, in this case alike unreason-
able. The mind should absolutely refuse either to
believe or disbelieve on such a subject. Now this
is an obviously absurd view, an obviously most
erroneous advice, except on two suppositions —
namely, that there is no reason whatever in favour
either of theism or atheism, or that the reasons for
the one exactly counterbalance those for the other.
We have no right to withhold belief where there
is reason for belief, nor to believe otherwise than
according to reason. But all forms of theoretical
atheism give some reasons for their claims to be

1 88 Anti-Theistic Theories.

received, and theism maintains that it has an
overwhelming weight of reason on its side. In
these circumstances, no man is entitled to withhold
any more than to yield belief as he pleases. No
man is entitled to evade the responsibility of care-
fully considering what is to be believed and dis-
believed on the greatest subject with which human
thought can be occupied, by the arbitrary and
unreasoned assertion that belief and disbehef in
reference to it are both unwarranted. No man
has a right to make such an assertion without
trying to prove it. It is an assertion which needs
proof as much as any theory of the origin of the
world.

It is an assertion which does not appear, at least
at the first glance, as if it would be easy of proof.
For what does its proof imply } Manifestly both
the disproof of all the theories which have been
entertained as to the origin of things — theism,
pantheism, polytheism, and even materialism —
and proof that all theories which may in future be
started on the same subject must be equally in
vain. The latter task, as I showed in my first
lecture, must transcend human power. The human
mind of to-day cannot know what will be dis-
covered by the human mind a hundred, a thou-
sand, a million years hence. Only an infinite
mind can foreknow what a finite mind will know
throughout eternity. It is absurd for a philosophy

Positivism in relation to Religion. 189

which professes to confine itself to experience to
dogmatise on what man may or may not possibly
know. He who would prove that God cannot be
known, must prove that there is something essen-
tially self-contradictory in the very notion of the
Divine existence and nature. But that cannot be
proved by experience ; it can only be proved, if it
can be proved at all, by the self-criticism of reason,
by the metaphysical process which positivism pro-
nounces worthless,

A simple refutation of the proofs adduced on
behalf of the various forms of religion must be
admitted to be a more hopeful undertaking, but
even it is not one in which positivism has suc-
ceeded. It has brought nothing new to light
against pantheism. It has favoured materialism
instead of overcoming and expelling it. Its argu-
ments a£!"ainst theism have consisted to a larc^e
extent of ancient and superficial fallacies, the
weight of which are as nothing compared with the
reasons in the opposite scale. Before casting aside
a belief like that in God — a belief entertained
by a long succession of generations, by millions
of men, by the noblest intellects which the world
has ever known — a belief the most fruitful in
great thoughts and great deeds — a belief which
could not be displaced without shaking society
from top to base, — the examination of its foun-
dations ought to be impartial and profound ; but

1 90 Anti-Theistic Theories.

positivism has undertaken no examination of the
kind.

The only argument with any claim to be re-
garded as original or distinctive which positivism
has employed against theism, is that which some of
its supporters rest on the so-called lazu of the three
states. Comte, as every one knows who knows
anything regarding his views, holds that specu-
lation is first theological, then metaphysical, and
finally positive ; or, in other words, is first a refer-
ence of phenomena to supernatural volitions, then
to occult causes, and finally the mere arranging of
them according to their relations of sequence and
coexistence, likeness or unlikeness. He believed
that he had established that the progressive march
of human thought was from the first to the last
of these states, and that when the last was reached,
those which preceded it were left behind ; that
when positive science was attained, theological and
metaphysical speculation were necessarily seen to
be illegitimate and worthless. Some, however, who
have imagined that they adopted his law — the late
Mr J. S. Mill and Mr J. Morley, for example-
would ignore its negative bearing, at least towards
theology, and suppose it to mean merely that in
the positive epoch all phenomena, physical and
social, will be looked upon as following a fixed
order, although that order may have been ordained
by God. With positivists of this class I need here

Positivism in relation to Religion. 191

have no controversy. I am only surprised that
they should be able to suppose that they accept
Comte's law as proposed by himself. If he had
seen that positivist thought was not exclusive of
theological thought ; that when you had reached
a law of phenomenon, so far from having done
with all questions as to whether or not these phe-
nomena have any relation to God, you were only
brought into a position to ask, Is this lav/ not an
ordinance of God ? — is it not an expression of His
will .'' — I should have had nothing to object to him.
But had he seen that, he would have seen also
that his positivism was a comparatively small
and partial thing, however true it might be within
the narrow limits in that case assigned to it. Cer-
tainly, as a matter of fact, he did not see it. He
clearly and explicitly taught the contrary. He
distinctly held that positivism so excludes meta-
physics and theology, that positivism completed
would be metaphysics and theology eliminated
from the entire intelligible world.

For this dogma, however, he produced no his-
torical evidence. There was, in fact, none to pro-
duce. The scientific proof of law has in no single
instance been found to include or involve disproof
of a lawgiver. In no nation, and with respect
to no single science or even single scientific truth,
has the human mind yet reached a position which
is beyond or above theism, or from which theism

192 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

can be seen to be untrue ; so that Comte's law, as
propounded by himself, is in its negative reference,
in which alone it concerns us here, wholly un-
warranted by facts. Comte has mistaken, as I
have previously had occasion to prove, in a work
on the ' Philosophy of History in France and
Germany,' three coexistent states for three suc-
cessive stages of thought, three aspects of things
for three epochs of time. Theology, metaphysics,
and positive science, instead of following only
after one another, each constituting an epoch, have
each pervaded all epochs — have coexisted from
the earliest times to the present day. There has
been no passing away of any one of them. Each
new positive science brings with it principles which
the metaphysician finds it requisite to submit to
an analytic examination, and in which he finds
new materials for speculation ; and also, in the
measure of its success, results in which the theo-
logian finds some fresh disclosure of the thoughts
and character of God. Underneath all positive or
empirical science there is metaphysics ; above all
such science there is theology ; and these three
are so related that every advance of science must
extend the spheres both of true metaphysics and
true theology. Hence history, far from showing
that theology and metaphysics are purely of her
domain, merely passing phases of thought pre-
paratory for positive science, illusions of the

Positivism in relation to Religion. 193

infancy and youth of humanity through which
the mind must pass on its way to maturity, certi-
fies, on the contrary, that all three have constantly
existed together, — that while each has been gradu-
ally emancipating itself from the interference and
control of the others, each has been advancing
and evolving within its proper sphere and in due
relationship to the others ; that they are distin-
guishable but not divisible ; that they represent
real aspects of existence and respond to eternal
aspirations of the human heart. I do not dwell,
however, on this, because I have elsewhere done
so. Suffice it to say that the appeal of the
positivist to history for a testimony unfavour-
able to theism, evokes only a declaration on its
behalf.^

Let us consider for a moment the positivist
appeal to reason. Under this head Comte's fun-
damental objection to theism and theology is, that
they imply that man can attain to a knowledge of
causes, whereas causes are, he holds, absolutely in-
accessible to the human intellect. He admits that
a rehgious theory of the world, a belief in a divine
Author of the world, is inevitable, if reason can
rise to causes, but he denies that it can. To deny,
however, is always easy; to prove a negative is
always difficult. In order to prove the negative
in question, M. Comte must have proved that he
^ See Appendix XXI.
N

194 Anti-Theistic Theories.

himself was not a cause ; that it could not be fairly
concluded that he was the efficient and intelligent
author of the books which he took credit to him-
self for having written ; that the apparent evi-
dences of mind in these works were deceptive, and
did not warrant the reference of them to mind as
their cause. The only reasons which he advanced
against the theistic conclusion should have led him
straight to suspense of judgment respecting the
causation involved in the production of his own
works. They were as good grounds for declar-
ing illusory the evidence for his own existence as
for disregarding the evidence for God's existence,
although, of course, extremely insufficient grounds
for doing either the one or the other. If from the
combination of letters in a book we can legiti-
mately rise to the mind of the author as at least
one of the causes of its existence, a knowledge of
causes, in the only sense in which a theist is inter-
ested in maintaining that they can be known, is
clearly not inaccessible to the human intellect,
but within its easy reach. If, on the other hand,
positivists are justified in asserting that causes are
absolutely unknowable, let them not expect us to
believe that they themselves are the authors of
books and speeches ; that their invisible thoughts
and volitions have originated printed and audible
words. If a human mind can reveal itself as in a
certain sense a cause through paper and printer's

Positivism in relation to Religion. 195

ink, it is utterly arbitrary to deny that the Divine
mind may reveal itself as in the same sense a
cause through the arrangements and forms of the
material universe.

All the reasonings of positivists against causes
resolve themselves at last into the single argument
— We cannot see causality, and therefore we cannot
know causes ; our senses show us succession but
not causation, antecedents and consequents but
not causes and effects ; and we know nothing, and
have no right to believe anything, beyond what
our senses show us. In other words, their entire
argumentation proceeds on a superficial hypothesis
as to the nature of knowledge — one which fails to
note that the mind itself is the most important
factor in knowledge, and that the simplest and
directest experience presupposes a constitution in
thought as well as in things. Causes are inferred
to be metaphysical fictions because sensation is
assumed to be the sole means of knowledge, the
only true ground of belief, and the complete meas-
ure of existence. But these assumptions are crude
and unfounded dogmas. To those who believe
that there is no such state as mere sensation —
that thought and belief must always go beyond
sensation — that the idea of cause is a necessary
condition of intellectual activity — and that pheno-
mena can only be apprehended and conceived of
by the help of this idea, — the reasoning of the

196 Anti-Thcistic Theories,

positlvist must seem a manifest begging of the
question.

When treating last year of the design argument,
I examined all the objections of Comte against
final causes which seemed to me possessed of any
plausibility. On this point, therefore, I shall merely
remark now, that if, as he maintained, we can
know nothing of final causes, nothing of the pur-
poses which things are meant to accomplish, the
arguments by which he attempted to show that
they might have realised their final causes, fulfilled
their purposes, better than they do, ought in self-
consistency never to have been used. If we can
have no notion of the purpose of a thing, we can-
not judge whether it is fulfilling its purpose or not,
whether it is fulfilling it well or ill. Comte's un-
qualified denial of the possibility of knowing the
ends of things is glaringly inconsistent with his
attempts to prove that things might have been
constituted and arranged in a happier and more
advantageous manner. For a man who avows
complete ignorance of the purposes of things to
try to show that they are not fulfilHng their pur-
poses, or might fulfil them more successfully, is
the most suicidal, self-contradictory undertaking
imaginable. It shows that he himself finds it
impossible really to believe what he rashly affirms.
It shows that in spite of his theory the behef
in final causes is so rooted in his intellectual

The Positivist Religion. 197

nature that he assumes it even when reasoning-

o

against it.

II.

Were positivism established as a philosophy, no
room would be left for religion in the ordinary-
sense of the term. If the mind can know nothinsf
except the phenomena of immediate experience,
if sensations and feelings be the matter of all its
thoughts, if God be wholly beyond its cognisance,
it is inevitably condemned to confine its beliefs,
anticipations, fears, and joys, to this visible and
temporal scene of things. This being the case,
how can there be any religion t Till comparatively
late in his career, Comte did not suppose there
could be any, and did not feel the want of any.
He considered "religiosity," as he called it, **a
mere weakness, and avowal of want of power."
But in the latter part of his life he passed through
certain experiences which convinced him that the
heart was as essential a part of humanity as the
head ; that the spirit required to be satisfied as
well as the intellect. He felt in himself wants
which mere science could not supply, and recog-
nised, in consequence, that the human race could
not dispense with a religion. With characteristic
boldness he proceeded to invent what he was
pleased to designate a religion. This so-called

iqS Anti-Theistic TJieories.

religion has not as yet obtained many adherents,
and does not appear as if it would be more suc-
cessful in the future, although its founder felt no
doubt that it would speedily supersede all former
faiths. Few of those who are positivists in philo-
sophy are also positivists in religion. As a rule,
positivists have no religion. And in this, I think,
they are quite consistent.

M. Comte laid the basis of his proposed reli-
gious reformation in a radical alteration of the
signification of the word religion. Religion had
been previously always understood to imply be-
lief in a God — to rest on some affirmation of the
supernatural. M. Comte wished to present as a
religion a theory of life which involved no belief
in a God — no affirmation of the supernatural. He
gained his end simply enough by employing the
word religion in a peculiar sense. But, of course,
there was and could be no justification of this
procedure. The human race has rights in such
a term as religion which are not to be sacrificed
to the will of any individual. The business of a
thinker deaHng with this and similar words is, to
ascertain what they have hitherto meant and what
they actually mean, and to apply them as other
men have done and do ; for him to impose a sig-
nification of his own upon them is alike an arbi-
trary and an arrogant act, and one which tends to
generate confusion and error. A religion which is

TJie Posit ivist Rcligioji. 199

independent of a belief in a God is a conception of
the same kind as a circle whose radii are not all
equal. Belief in a God is of the very essence of all
that men have been accustomed to call religion,
and whatever is not inclusive of this belief ought
to be expressed by some other term than religion.
What, however, is religion, according to M.
Comte .f* It is, he says, ''the synthetic idealisation
of our existence," or "that state of perfect unity
which is the distinctive mark of man's existence,
both as an individual and in society, when all the
constituent parts of his nature, moral as well as
physical, are made habitually to converge towards
one common unity." Mr J. S. Mill accepted M.
Comte's view on this subject, and gave it expres-
sion in clear and simple terms. These are the
conditions necessary to constitute a religion in the
positivist sense of the word, as stated by Mr Mill :
"There must be a creed or conviction claiming
authority over the whole of human life ; a belief,
or set of beliefs, deliberately adopted, respecting
human destiny and duty, to which the believer in-
wardly acknowledges that all his actions ought to
be subordinate. Moreover, there must be a senti-
ment connected with this creed, or capable of being
invoked by it, sufficiently powerful to give it, in
fact, the authority over human conduct to which
it lays claim in theory." According to this doc-
trine, "if a person has an ideal object, his attach-

200 Anti-Theistic Theories.

ment and sense of duty towards which are able to
control and discipline all his other sentiments and
propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life,
that person has a religion."

Such is the account of religion given by M.
Comte and Mr Mill. What are we to think of
it } Well, it could scarcely be more inaccurate
than it is. Were we not told that it was meant
for an account of religion, we should certainly
never have imagined anything of the kind, and,
even after being told this, it is somewhat difficult
to believe it. The distinguished authors of the
description have succeeded about as well as would
a painter who, designing to represent a man, should
draw the likeness of a horse or some other animal.
They have given a sort of picture not of religion
at all, but of morality, and have consequently
done what they could inextricably to confound
religion and morality. Conscience, as the supreme
legislative principle in man, is necessarily the power
which is in possession of the synthetic ideal of life.
Its dictates constitute the law of unity to which all
the parts and faculties of human nature should
habitually converge. It essentially consists of " a
creed or conviction claiming authority over the
whole of human life, and a sentiment connected
with this creed, or capable of being invoked by it,
giving it the authority over human conduct to
which it lays claim in theory." When language

TJic Positivist Religion. 201

is used with propriety, " if a person has an ideal
object, his attachment and sense of duty towards
which are able to control and discipline all his
other sentiments and propensities, and prescribe
to him a rule of life," what that person will be said
to have is a good moral character. Thus the
Comtist account of religion corresponds in some
measure to morality. But it has scarcely the
most distant resemblance to religion. Test it by
application to any of the heathen religions, with
the exception of Buddhism, and its inaccuracy will
be seen at once ; while Buddhism only answers
to it so far in consequence of being a system of
philosophy and a code of ethics as well as a reli-
gion. Religion is not essentially synthetic. It
does not necessarily tend to unity, and still less is
it necessarily a state of perfect unity. In almost
all its lower forms, and even in the worships of
India and Greece, in may be seen to work towards
division and multiplicity. The tendency to unity
is only manifested in a religion when the theoris-
ing reason obtains the mastery over imagination
and phantasy. The mythological processes are
the reverse of synthetic or unifying. Nor does
religion necessarily and of itself prescribe a uni-
versal and comprehensive rule of life. One of the
most obtrusive facts presented by the history of
religion is, that only in its higher types does reli-
gion enter into alliance with morality, and add its

202 Anti-Theistic Theories,

sanction and consecration to a general code of
conduct. Religion as religion, may be, and in
countless cases is, grievously divorced from the
sense of duty. The separation is, of course, to be
deplored, but its possibility, and, still more, its
frequent actual occurrence, prove that to identify
religion with morality is altogether inadmissible.
Further, religion does not imply idealisation in the
sense meant by Comte and Mill. Imagination,
there is no doubt, enters largely into religion, and
worshippers always conceive of their gods as in
some respects superior to themselves. But ideal-
isation as a conscious formation of types of per-
fection, or a deliberate imaginative glorification
of anything, so as to make it an ideal object in
contradistinction to a real object, is not a religious
but a purely poetical process. Ideals cannot even
be idols.

Yet Comte might have gone still farther from
the truth as to the nature of religion than he
actually did. The idealisation which he demanded
was the idealisation of a reality, — the idealisation
of the Great Being or Humanity. It was not the
idealisation which is pure fiction — which is wholly
irrespective of truth — which has no connection
whatever with reality. Comte thus left it possible
for a successor to acquire the fame of originality
by maintaining that the essence of religion was
such pure or absolutely baseless idealisation ; and

The Positivist Religion. 203

this, I regret to say, is precisely what has been
done by Lange, the author of the * History of
Materiahsm.' He has followed to the very end
the path opened by Comte ; and although the
end be an abyss, he has cast himself into it. He
does not propose, like Strauss, to substitute poetry
for religion, but he regards religion as merely a
kind of poetry. Man, he holds, has, and can have,
no knowledge of anything transcending positive
experience, no cognisance of supernatural reality,
no apprehension of spiritual truth. At the same
time, he also holds that knowledge, experience,
and truth, are insufficient to satisfy the wants of
human nature. He insists that there are tenden-
cies or instincts in the heart which crave for ideal
objects that respond exclusively to the emotions.
The spirit, in his view, can only find peace by
creating a home for itself in the ideal world. But
it must beware of falling into the delusion that the
contents of that world are truths. It must regard
them merely as means of emotional development
and culture. Hymns like " Rock of Ages cleft
for me," and "Jesus, lover of my soul," may be
retained and devotionally used, provided it be
remembered that they are simply poetry — that
they have no basis in reality.

The mere statement of such a view is a sufficient
refutation of it. What it represents as religion is
an idiotic and immoral mimicry of religion. Lange

204 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

has given no reasons for entertaining it, and I need
give none for rejecting it. I have noticed it merely
to show that as to the nature of reh'gion there is
even a lower depth than that into which Comte
fell. He failed to see that only a religion which
is based on the conviction that there is a reality
higher than man's highest ideals^ can satisfy the
intellect and heart; and he fancied, in consequence,
that a finite being — a being which can be exalted
and magnified by idealisation — was an appropriate
object of adoration. But great as was this error,
it was, of course, far less monstrous than to teach
that religion was wholly independent of belief in
truth or reality, and that men ought only to wor-
ship in the future what they know to be the fictions
of their own minds.

The positivist religion presents to us as an ob-
ject of worship a trinity of existences — the earth,
space, and humanity. The earth is called the
Supreme Fetich, space the Supreme Medium
and humanity the Supreme Being. The positivist
is instructed duly to commemorate the services of
our common mother, the earth, and of her coeval
institution, space ; but humanity is to be the chief
object of his worship. True piety consists in hav-
ing the thoughts, affections, and volitions ever bent
on the preservation and amelioration of humanity.
This humanity is by no means, however, what is
ordinarily called humanity. It is something very

TJie Posit ivist Rclizion. 20;

i>

peculiar indeed. It is neither human nature, nor
the human race, nor the aggregate of living men.
It is said to be an organism of which individuals
and generations, whether belonging to the past,
present, or future, are inseparable parts, and yet it
excludes multitudes of the human species, and
includes some of the lower animals. It does not
comprehend savage and unprogressive peoples, or
individuals without any particular merits. It con-
sists for the most part of the dead and the unborn.
The majority of the living are only its servants,
without the power at present of becoming its
organs. It is only seven years after they are
dead, and on condition of their being found worthy
of "subjective immortality," that they are to be
" incorporated in the Supreme Being." The in-
corporation is to be effected by the vote of the
positivist community. As the positivist believes
in the annihilation of all the dead, and as the
future generations are not yet in existence, his
Supreme Being is obviously a being which is
largely no being at all, an entity which is for the
most part a non-entity. The notion of it is, in
fact, so self-contradictory, that it can only be
expressed in language which seems intended to
caricature it.

That this should be the case is all the more
remarkable, because Comte was fully aware how
incumbent upon him it was accurately to deter-

2o6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

mine what was to be meant by humanity. He
knew and acknowledged that a clear and consis-
tent conception of the signification of the term was
to his theory of religion as indispensable as is a
solid and well-laid foundation-stone to a building ;
that to attain and exhibit such a conception was
his first duty in connection with the new faith
which he desired to propagate ; and that if he
failed in this part of his self-imposed task, his
failure as a rival of St Paul must be fatal and
total. Impressed with these convictions, he could
not, as a conscientious thinker, do otherwise than
bestow much labour in attempting to ascertain
and explain the nature of the humanity which he
represented as an object of worship. His failure
certainly cannot be attributed to his having shrunk
from the requisite exertion. He toiled long and
hard on the subject. Still fail he did, and most
signally. The notion of humanity as he has pre-
sented it in the 'Positive Polity,' although the
very corner-stone of his religion, is so self-con-
tradictory and incoherent, that it can only be
expressed in Hibernicisms. It is composed of
concrete and abstract, positive and metaphysical
elements, of facts and fictions, of entity and non-
entity. An obvious inference is, that Comte can-
not have founded the religion of humanity.

While the object of the positivist faith is ex-
tremely ill defined, its organisation and worship

The Positivist Religion. 207

are most minutely delineated. This is the conse-
quence, however, not of internal self-consistency
and reasonableness, but of imitation of Roman
Catholicism. While Comte abandoned the great
and comprehensive principles which the Roman
Catholic Church holds in common with the rest
of the Christian world, he retained many of the
distinctive prejudices which it sanctions and en-
genders, and copied its policy and ritual in describ-
ing the constitution and prescribing the worship
of what he believed would be the religion of the
future. He demanded that there should be set
apart to the service of humanity an order of
priests or savants, composed of positivist philoso-
phers, hierarchically arranged, with a supreme
pontiff at their head, to whom absolute powers
are to be intrusted in intellectual or spiritual
matters. This priesthood is to be salaried by
the State ; is to have the entire charge of public
education and of the practice of medicine ; and
is to counsel, and, if need be, reprove the temporal
power. The high priest must reside in Paris, the
holy city of the new religion. There are to be
ecclesiastical courts and laws. The temples should
all face towards Paris, and are to be furnished
with altars, images, &c. The dress of the clergy
is to be rather more feminine than masculine.
Eighty - one solemn festivals, secondary or prin-
cipal, are to constitute the worship annually paid

2o8 Anti-Theistic Theories.

to the Great Being by its servants assembled in
its temples. Each step in life is to have its special
consecration, and hence the sacraments of the new
religion are to be nine in number, — presentation,
initiation, admission, destination, marriage, matu-
rity, retreat, transformation, and incorporation.
Private prayers are to be presented thrice a-day ;
the morning prayer is to be an hour, the mid-day
prayer a quarter of an hour, and the evening
prayer half an hour in length. What is called
" the beautiful creation of the medieval mind —
the woman with the child in her arms," is selected
as the symbol of humanity; and "to give life and
vividness to this symbol, and to worship in general,
each positivist is taught to adopt as objects of his
adoration his mother, his wife, his daughter, allow-
ing the principal part to the mother, but blending
the three into one compound influence — represent-
ing to him humanity in its past, its present, and
its future.

I must not more minutely describe the monstrous
mixture of atheism, fetichism, ultramontanism, and
ritualism, which claims to be the Religion of Hu-
manity, so absurd and grotesque is it. Almost
its only noble characteristic is the spirit of disin-
terestedness which it breathes, the stress which it
lays on the duty of living for the good of others.
In this respect it has imitated, although longo

The Positivist Religion. 209

intervallo, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But unHke
the Gospel, although it enjoins love to one another
with the urgency which is due, it unseals no fresh
source and brings to light no new motives of love.
A mere doctrinal inculcation of the duty of active
and affectionate beneficence, under the barbarous
name of altruism, is its highest service as a sys-
tem of religion, what it has added thereto being
worse than useless, because tending to render even
" the royal law " of love itself ridiculous.^

Is it not instructive that Comte should have
been unable to devise anything better than the
so-called religion of which I have been speaking,
and that neither he nor any other person who has
attempted to raise a substitute for Christianity on
the basis of science has failed signally to display
his own feebleness and folly ? The character of
the religions which have been invented in the pre-
sent age is no slight indirect confirmation of the
divine origin of the religion which they would
displace. If all that men can do in the way of
religious invention, even in the nineteenth century,
and with every help which science can give them,
is like what we have seen them doing, the religion
which has come down to us through so many cen-
turies can have been no human invention. It could
not have been originated by science ; and were it

^ See Appendix XXII.
O

210 Anti-Tlieistic Theories.

withdrawn, science would assuredly find no substi-
tute for it. Take it away and we should be left
even at this hour in absolute spiritual darkness
and helplessness. That is the truth which all
modern attempts to found and form new religions
concur in establishing.

Secularism.. 2 1 1

LECTURE VI.

SECULARISM.

I.

The subject of my last lecture was Positivism.
Now I wish to speak of Secularism. These two
theories are nearly related in nature. They are
manifestations of the same principles and tenden-
cies. They may almost be said to be the two
halves of the same whole ; in other words, secu-
ralism may be regarded as the theory of life or
conduct which flows from the theory of belief or
knowledge that constitutes the substance of posi-
tivism. And yet it would be an error to represent
secularism as historically an offshoot of positivism.
It may fairly claim, I believe, to be as much of
English growth as positivism must be admitted to
be of French growth. Its representatives have
been, it is true, considerably influenced by the
writings of the founder of positivism, and still more
influenced by the writings of his English followers,

212 Anti-Theistic Theories.

particularly by those of Mr J. S. Mill and G. H.
Lewes ; but in the main their scepticism is a
native product. Thomas Paine and Richard
Carlile, Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, Robert
Owen and George Combe, — all contributed at least
as much to the formation of secularism as Auguste
Comte.

It is difficult, or rather impossible, to ascertain
to what extent secularism is prevalent. There are,
so far as I know, no reliable statistics on the
subject. Many are doubtless complete secularists
who do not call themselves so, and who belong to
no secularist society. On the other hand, some
who call themselves secularists, and perhaps even
the majority of the members of some of the secu-
larist societies, hold probably only a very small
part of what is usually implied by the term secu-
larism. Mr Holyoake represents what may be
called one school of secularists, and Mr Brad-
laugh another ; and one main difference between
them is, that the former denies that the principles
of secularism include atheism, while the latter
affirms that they do. Yet even Mr Bradlaugh
does not hold that atheism is a necessary con-
dition of membership in secularist associations.
Such membership may, consequently, be in some,
or even in many cases, merely the expression of
more or less dissatisfaction with the theology
taught in our churches, and of sympathy with

Prevalence of Seeularism. 215

certain projected social and political changes. It
may not exclude either belief in a God or belief in
a future state. Hence even those who ought to
know best the strength of secularism are found
to differ widely from one another as to what its
strength is, and as to whether its strength be in-
creasing or not. In proof, I may quote from the
discussion between Messrs Bradlaugh and Holy-
oake held in the New Hall of Science, London,
in 1870. The former thus replies to the latter's
statement that the Freethought party is in a state
of disorganisation : " I presume my friend means
relatively to some other period of their existence.
It is so disorganised, that I think we can send
something hke a hundred petitions to the House
of Commons in favour of any measure we desire to
support. It is so disorganised, that within three
days I will undertake to have all the principal
towns of England and Scotland placarded with
any particular placard which it is desired to have
brought before the notice of the people. It is so
disorganised, that there is not a large town, not
a village in England, not a large town in the south
of Scotland, and not many in the north, not many
in the south-west of Ireland, that within four or
five days I could not have any kind of communi-
cation placed by the hands of the members of the
Secular Society in the hands of the clergymen of
those towns. I am not speaking of what could be

214 Anti-Theistic Theories.

done. I am speaking of what has been done
during the last few years. Our organisation has
been such that we have played a part in the
political action of the country which has made
itself felt " (p. 56). Mr Holyoake answers : " Mr
Bradlaugh wanders through this land proclaim-
ing the principles of secularism as though they
were atheism, and arguing with the clergy. Why,
when I go now to Glasgow, to Huddersfield, to
Liverpool, to Manchester, I find the secularists
there unadvanced in position. Even in Northamp-
ton, which Mr Bradlaugh knows, I found them
lately meeting on the second floor of a public-
house, where I found them twenty or twenty-five
years ago. In Glasgow they are in the same
second-rate position they were in twenty- five or
thirty years ago. What have we been doing .^
Does not this show an obsolete policy ? Ranters,
Muggletonians, Mormons, and men of their stamp,
are superior to acting so. Any party in the pre-
sent state of opinion in the world could with
thought have done more. The most ordinary sects
build or hire temples, and other places, where their
people decently meet. Mr Bradlaugh, with all his
zeal and appeals, finds to-day that all London can
do is to put up this kind of place in which we now
meet opposite a lunatic asylum, where people, so
the enemy says, naturally expect to find us. He
is even obliged to tell you that at the West-end of

Prevalence of Secularism. 215

London he does not think highly of their state.
Now, we who have principles of materialism, and
descant incessantly on their superiority and effi-
cacy, what halls of splendour and completeness we
ought to put up ! . . . All that Mr Bradlaugh
said about the organisation of the party was not
an answer to what I said. I spoke of the organisa-
tion of ideas in it. I spoke of the number of your
paying members that belong to your societies in
any part of the country. Look at the poverty of
their public resources. Look at the few people of
local repute that will consent to share their name
and association. Why do they not do it.'' Because
they find no definite principle set down which
does not involve them in atheism and infidelity.
The truth is, that there are liberal theists, liberal
believers in another life, liberal believers in God,
perfectly willing to unite together with the extrem-
est thinkers, for secular purposes, giving effect to
every form of human liberty — but they refuse to
be saddled with the opprobrium of opinions they
do not hold, or do dislike."

These two estimates of the strength and progress
of secularism by its two best-known representatives
are very different, and yet probably they are not
really contradictory. I am inclined to believe
that they are both fair and unexaggerated state-
ments, and that if we combine them, instead of
contrasting them, we shall come tolerably near to

2i6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

the truth. If secularism be dissociated from atheism
it may be as strong as Mr Bradlaugh represents it
to be, while if explicitly committed to atheism it
may be as weak as Mr Holyoake represents it to
be. Some of the advocates of atheistic secularism
speak as if they represented the great body of the
artisans of our large towns. This would be most
alarming if it were true ; but no real evidence has
been produced to show that it is true, and I for one
entirely disbelieve it. I should be surprised if in
Edinburgh, for example, there were not on the
communion rolls of many a single congregation
the names of more artisans — and skilled artisans
too — than there are of avowedly atheistical secu-
larists in the whole city ; and yet, I daresay, what
secularists there are could get a large number of
signatures to petitions in favour of purely secular
education, the disestablishment and disendowment
of the National Church, the abolition of the House
of Lords, and a great many other things, wise and
foolish. On the other hand, it may not improb-
ably be the case that the strength of the most
thorough secularism is by no means fully repre-
sented by the number of its avowed adherents ;
that many are decidedly in sympathy with it who
do not decidedly attach themselves to it ; and that
many are on the way which would lead to accept-
ance of the atheism which it teaches who have
not yet reached that goal. I believe that atheism

Rise of Secularism. 2 1 7

is more diffused at present among the literary
classes of this country than among the labouring
classes ; but no doubt it is far too prevalent among
the latter also — so prevalent that piety and patriot-
ism both demand that every wise effort be made
energetically to counteract it.

Secularism is the most prevalent form of unbelief
amongst the manual workers of this country ; it is
almost confined to them ; and the chief causes of
its spread, and of the character which it bears,
must be sought for in their history. It has always
been closely associated with political dissatisfac-
tion, and no candid and well-informed person will
deny that the political dissatisfaction has been to
a considerable extent reasonable and just. The
French Revolution caused even in this country not
merely a temporary reaction from the kind of un-
belief which prevailed before it, but a sort of gen-
eral anti-revolutionary terror, largely characterised
by blindness, bigotry, and violence. The terror
gradually died away ; and the blindness, bigotry,
and violence discredited even what was true in the
principles with which they had been associated.
The long war with France and a selfish and unjust
commercial legislation spread wide and terrible
suffering among the poor; and the blind opposition
of the governing classes to political progress, and of
the clergy to religious freedom, naturally produced
a dangerous irritation which gave rise at once to

2i8 Anti-Theistic Theories.

demands for the most radical political changes,
and to the most sweeping rejection of the hitherto
accepted religious beliefs.

Mr Owen, whose socialistic views found for a
time a multitude of believers sufficiently sincere
to endeavour to realise them in practice, severely
denounced all the religions of the world, but he
never ceased to be a theist, and latterly became a
spiritualist. Jeremy Bentham and several of the
group of thinkers who gathered around him were
atheists ; but, although far from timid men, they
had not courage enough to avow publicly their
real sentiments on the subject of religion, lest by
doing so they should lessen their influence as po-
litical and juridical reformers. It was only from the
ranks of the working classes that there came forth
men with the full courage of their convictions —
men who not merely dared openly to avow athe-
ism, as well as republicanism and socialism, but to
defend their atheism before the courts of law, and
to endure for it imprisonment and other penalties.
Such men were Charles Southwell, Thomas Cooper,
George Jacob Holyoake, Thomas Paterson, &c. ;
and these men are to be regarded as the founders
and first propagators of Secularism. It would be
unjust to refuse them the honour due to their
courage and honesty ; and there can be no doubt
that by their brave and self-sacrificing conduct
they merited well of their fellow-countrymen, no

Persecution of Secularists. 219

matter how erroneous may have been the convic-
tions for which they suffered. Those who prose-
cuted them supposed, of course, that they were
defending Christianity, but Christianity can be
defended in no such way. It forbids all prose-
cution— all persecution — for the sake of religion.
Force cannot possibly propagate the truth, or
produce the faith, or promote the love in which
the Gospel consists. The Gospel is intolerant,
indeed, with the intolerance which is inherent
in the very nature of truth. Truth can only
be neglected by a man at his peril. No man is
morally free to believe a lie of any kind. All
truth carries with it the right to be believed, and
moral truth carries with it, in addition, the right
to be obeyed. The Gospel as truth, moral and
spiritual truth, the highest truth, yea, the truth,
does demand of us accordingly that w^e both be-
lieve and obey it — that we submit ourselves to it
in mind, heart, and life. It holds us guilty if we
do not. It warns us that either unbelief or dis-
obedience is a most grievous sin, and will have
most grievous consequences. But this intolerance,
if it be intolerance, has nothing to do with coercion.
Truth cannot be furthered by force. It must rest
its claims to allegiance solely on evidence sub-
mitted to the scrutiny of reason and conscience ;
and if its evidence be rejected, however per-
versely, there is no help for that in compulsion,

220 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories.

which can only add to what sin already exists the
sin of hypocrisy. Persecution can never arise from
zeal for the Gospel as truth — from zeal for the Gos-
pel properly understood. If ever due to zeal in
any measure, and not to pride, selfishness, anger,
ambition, and other hateful lusts which war against
the soul, and set men at strife and war with one
another, it must be to a zeal which is in alliance
with error. Zeal for the Gospel and erroneous
views of its nature may lead to persecution, but
never zeal and true views of its nature. If the
kingdom of God be thought of as a kingdom of
truth, — if to receive, love, and obey the truth as it
is in Jesus be felt to be the only means of belong-
ing to it, — the utmost intensity of zeal cannot in-
cline or tempt us to the use of force, since force
can have no tendency to promote the interests of
such a kingdom. The men, therefore, who by their
courage and endurance were specially instrumental
in convincing their countrymen that persecution
for the avowal and advocacy even of atheism is a
folly and a crime, have really rendered a service to
the cause of Christian truth, and their names will
not be recorded without honour when the history
of our century is impartially written.

The person to whom Secularism owes its name,
and who has done most to make it what it is in
England, is George Jacob Holyoake, and it is
chiefly as presented by him that I shall consider it

Relation of Seailai'isni to AtJicisni. 221

for a little. In doing so, we must determine first
how secularism is related to religion. As I have
already indicated, there is on this point a funda-
mental difference of opinion among secularists.
Mr Holyoake and those who agree with him hold
that secularism ought to start with the study of
nature as manifested to us, and ignore religion.
Mr Bradlaugh and those who agree with him hold
that secularism can only be founded in the disproof
and rejection of religion. Mr Holyoake is an athe-
ist in the same sense and to the same extent as
Mr Bradlaugh. He objects, however, to the name,
while Mr Bradlaugh does not. The ground of his
objection is that atheist is understood to mean
''one who is not only without God, but without
morality." But surely it can only be in very bad
dictionaries and by very uncandid persons that the
word atheist is so defined and employed. It pro-
perly means merely a man who thinks that there
is reason for disbelieving that there is a God, or a
man who thinks that there is no reason for believ-
ing that there is a God. It is in the latter sense
that both Mr Holyoake and Mr Bradlaugh are
atheists, and the former is so as much as the latter,
and he fully acknowledges this, although he would
prefer to be called a cosmist to being called an
atheist. It is not because he does not accept and
advocate atheism in the only sense in which it is
accepted and advocated by Mr Bradlaugh that he

222 Anti-Theistic Theories.

entirely differs from him on the question as to
whether atheism is or is not involved in secularism,
What, then, are his reasons for maintaining that
secularism ought to be severed from atheism? The
first is that the severance is rationally necessary.
Secularism is, in his view, a theory of life and its
duties founded exclusively on a study of the laws
of nature. Theism, pantheism, and atheism, are
all hypotheses as to the origin of these laws. But
if we know what the laws are we may order our
life according to them, although ignorant of their
origin, or whatever hypothesis we may adopt as to
their origin. Our present existence is a fact ; and
men may agree, and ought to agree, to deal with
it as such, although they cannot agree as to
whether there is a future life or not. " To ignore
is not to deny. To go one way is not to deny
that there may be, to other persons, another way.
To travel by land is not to deny the water. The
chemist ignores architecture, but he does not deny
it. And so the secularist concerns himself with
this world without denying or discussing any other
world, either the origin of this, or the existence of
that."

Now I think this reasoning will not stand even
a slight examination. One science is, it is true,
distinct from another, and yet to cultivate one is
not to deny another. So theology, as a mere de-
partment of thought, is distinct from the physical

Relation of Seciilavisin to AiJicisni. 223

and mental sciences, and he who studies the latter
may not direct his attention to the former. But
observe, first, that although the sciences are so far
distinct that to cultivate one is not to deny another,
they are also so related that he who cultivates one
cannot afford to ignore others. The student of
astronomy will not succeed if he ignores mathe-
matics. If you entertain false views of mechanical
and chemical laws you will never correctly explain
geological phenomena. And in like manner, if
there be a theology which directly or indirectly
denies any law of nature, the science which estab-
lishes that there is such a law must do more than
merely ignore the theology which disowns it — it
must oppose that theology. It cannot otherwise
maintain its own truth and self-consistency. Then
observe, secondly, that secularism is not mere knov/-
ledge, but an art, or at least the theory of an art,
professedly based on knowledge, and that con-
sequently it cannot reasonably ignore any kind of
knowledge which may concern it as an art. Archi-
tecture is an art — the art of building houses — and
as such it cannot afford to ignore any kind of
knowledge that bears on the building of houses.
An architecture which took no account of the law
of gravitation and other principles of mechanics,
of the properties of stone, lime, and wood, of wind
and water, light and air, would be only the art of
trying to build houses that would not stand, or

224 Anti-Theistic Theories.

which could not be inhabited if they did. Apply
this to the case before us. Secularism professes
to teach us a more difficult and complex art than
that of building houses — the art of ordering our
lives aright in this v/orld — the art of properly dis-
charging our duties in this present life ; and at
the same time secularism, as represented by Mr
Holyoake, tells us that we may ignore the ques-
tions, Is there a God } is there a future world t
I ask if such secularism be not precisely like an
architecture which would advise us to take no
account in building our houses of light and air,
and therefore not to trouble ourselves about win-
dows and ventilators } Give me reason to believe
that there is no God and no future existence, and
then I shall have reason to ignore them ; but to
ask me to ignore them before you have done so, is
neither more nor less than to ask me to act like a
fool. If I cannot find out that there is a God or
a future Hfe, I must be convinced by reason that I
cannot. If I can find out anything about them, I
ought to do my best to find out as much about
them as I can. And whatever I find out, or think
I find out about them, I am bound as a reasonable
and moral being to take account of in my conduct
in this life.

But Mr Holyoake has another reason. He
wishes secularism to be a positive, peaceful, fruit-
ful system. He dislikes a merely negative form

Rdation of Secularism to Atheism. 225

of freethought. He comes into the provinces and
finds secularist societies ruled by young orators
who are mere negationists, who have no capital in
principles, whose whole stock-in-trade is denial of
what somebody else holds, and he says that that
is not secularism in any possible sense, and does
harm rather than good by angering people instead
of instructing them. To remedy this he would
have secularists to intrench themselves in the in-
culcation of purely secular principles, and to apply
their energies directly and mainly to the develop-
ment and realisation of these principles, with little
or no regard either to atheism or theism.

The motive originating and underlying this
argument is most honourable to Mr Holyoake,
and is in accordance with his character. But I
cannot see the justice of it in itself. It does not
seem relevant against even a secularist like Mr
Bradlaugh, because, of course, he is able to reply
that he teaches atheism because he thinks theism
very pernicious, so that to destroy it is to do a vast
amount of good ; and that he also teaches what is
positive in secularism, when he has shown that he
has a right to be a secularist at all. Nor can the
argument recommend itself to the theist. To him
Mr Holyoake's secular principles, in so far as they
do not involve atheism, will seem to belong to
himself as much as to Mr Holyoake. What truth
of science, he will say, is there which I do not

P

226 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

accept as much as you ? What law of secular duty
do you acknowledge which I reject ? As a theist
I am bound by even more obligations than you
are to honour all science and all duty. It is only
by your atheism, therefore, and by the negations
implied in your atheism, that you can distinguish
yourself from me. All the purely positive truth
in your secularism, all the science, all the duty,
is not more yours than it is mine, although I reject
utterly your secularism, and maintain that man
has no duties more important than those which
he owes to his God, and that it is sheer folly for
an immortal being to live as if death were the end
of all.

It must be added that Mr Holyoake acknow-
ledges that he was not uninfluenced in the forma-
tion and adoption of his opinion by considerations
of expediency. In the debate already referred to
he said : " The principles of secularism, which I
maintain are definable quite apart from the Bible,
quite apart from atheism, are not the imaginary,
or incoherent, or capricious selection from a variety
of principles, resting merely or only on my author-
ity— they were principles which we had acquired
by the slow accretion of controversy, by contesting
for them from platform to platform all over the
country ; and when they were drawn up, I sub-
mitted them in the aggregate form, many years
after they had been separately formulated, to Mr

Relation of Secularism to Atheism. 227

J. S. Mill, and asked him whether or not, in his
judgm.ent, we had made such a statement of
secular principles as were worthy to stand as self-
defensive principles of the working class, as an
independent mode of opinion which should no
longer involve them in the necessity of taking on
their shoulders the responsibility of an atheistic
or infidel propagandism except when it suited the
purpose of a member to do it. He admitted it in
terms which it was a reward to read. It was not
until we had the sanction of one so competent to
judge, that these principles were promulgated in a
definite manner as the principles of a party. The
reason they were drawn up in the form ultimately
submitted to the public was this : we found in
a memorable address by Sir James Stephen, at
Cambridge, it was represented that Mr Grote,
Mr Mill, and other eminent philosophers whom, he
named, had been so outraged by the offensive ob-
servations of the clergy — by their charging every
man of science with infidelity, scepticism, or athe-
ism— that they refused any longer to take notice
of Christianity ; they had withdrawn from it, they
stood apart from it, they constructed a system of
their own, they had a philosophy of their own,
they had principles whereby they regulated their
own line of conduct ; and when the minister spoke
they no longer felt called upon to regard him ; they
could deny his authority to give an opinion on

228 Anti-Theislic Theories.

their proceedings. The clergyman apphes to them,
but they make no response ; he preaches his doc-
trine, but they condescend to no criticism. The
result is, the clergyman, when too late, has to
exclaim, ' The philosophers pass us by, they ignore
Christianity, and in the end we shall have to be-
come suppliants for their attention, because we
repelled them when they were suppliants for ours.'
Now it struck me, that was a far prouder and more
triumphant thing to accomplish than any wild
warring against theologians ; we were at the mercy
of their overwhelming power. My purpose was to
put into the hands of the working classes prin-
ciples which should serve their purpose in the
same way, and make them equally independent
and equally proud, defiant, and unassailable."

This seems to me to be an argument of a lower
type. It is an appeal to policy such as one would
scarcely have expected from Mr Holyoake. A
man who had so courageously avowed the most
unpopular sentiments regarding religion, and so
unflinchingly borne the consequences, might well
have been supposed little to admire the conduct
of any one who, however eminent, should shrink
from the responsibility implied in the conviction
that Christianity is a gigantic delusion, and ven-
ture only to attack it secretly, anonymously, or
posthumously. If Christianity be, in the judg-
ment of any person, an imposture, which has pro-

Relation of Sccularisvi to AtJicisiii. 229

duced, and is daily producing, a host of moral,
social, and political evils, how can he, as an honest
man, take no notice of it, or even slight notice of
it ? Is he not as much bound earnestly to assail
it as one who esteems it an incalculable blessing
is bound zealously to defend and propagate it ?
Is he not all the more bound to oppose it, because
its influence is wide and powerful ? He who is not
for it must be against it. Neutrality is logically
and morally impossible. Reason and conscience
prescribe a policy which must be conformed to
whatever expediency may suggest, and that policy
is not one of concealment and evasion. But even
an expediency which is real and not merely ap-
parent, universal and not simply individual, must
declare against the course recommended by Mr
Holyoake. Supposing Sir James Stephen's ac-
count of the conduct of Mr Grote, Mr Mill, &c.,
to have been correct, was the policy attributed to
them really beneficial to any person but them-
selves, and those whom they regarded as their
opponents t Mr Grote writing his ' History of
Greece,' and Mr Mill writing his ' Logic,' were, no
doubt, admirably employed, and deservedly merit-
ing the gratitude of their contemporaries and of
posterity; but what did they effect thereby against
Christianity.? How did they injure it by ignoring
it "i Who were the clergymen who became sup-
pliants for their attention t Was there any clergy-

230 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

man so stupid as to expect that Christianity should
be either attacked or defended in a ' History of
Greece/ or in a scientific treatise on ' Logic ' ? The
policy ascribed to Mr Grote and Mr Mill is as
absurd as would be that of an admiral who, if
ordered to reduce Cronstadt, should, by way of
carrying out his commission, stay in London and
write a work on mechanics or navigation. That
might be good policy for him, but it would have
little effect on Cronstadt. Christianity cannot
and will not leave secularism alone. If it have
any belief in itself, any life and sincerity, it must
attack by all fair means a system so utterly alien
to itself. Is secularism prepared to renounce the
right of reply and counter-attack .'* I should be
rejoiced to hear it; but I must candidly admit
that the reasons of my satisfaction would be a
conviction that the policy would prove a very bad
one for secularism, and, still more, the belief that
its adoption might be accepted as a sign that
secularists distrusted their power to refute the
claims of Christianity.

I fail to see, then, that Mr Holyoake's position
is at all an intelligible one. Mr Bradlaugh's I
quite understand ; indeed, it would be rather diffi-
cult not to understand words like these: "What
we say is, and what you do not say is, that the-
ological teachings prevent human improvement,
and that It is the duty of every secularist to make

Relation of Secularism to Atheism. 231

active war on theological teachings. It is no use
saying, ignore the clergy. You cannot talk of
ignoring St Paul's Cathedral — it is too high. You
cannot talk of ignoring the Religious Tract So-
ciety— it is too wealthy. You cannot talk of
ignoring Oxford and Cambridge Universities —
they are too well endowed. They command
too many parties to enable you to ignore their
power, but you may strive to crush it out a
little at a time. You cannot strike all errors
effectually at once, but you can strike at some
and encourage others to strike too. This is the
secularist's work Paine and Carlile cut out years
ago. This is the secularist's work Southwell
and yourself undertook. This is the secularist's
work in which every man has got his share to do,
who feels as I feel. The secularist's work which
we have to do is to cut down, as my friend put it,
the banyan-tree of superstition, which tree seeks
to send its roots down into every baby brain, and
which holds by the habit-faith of the rich, and by
the ignorant credulity of the poor. Every branch
of this superstitious tree bears poisonous fruit ;
but before you can get the branches effectively
destroyed, you must cut away the roots as well
as gently train the tree. The upas-tree of reli-
gion overspreads the whole earth ; it hides with
its thick foliage of churchcraft the rays of truth
from humankind, and we must cut at its root and

232 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

strip away its branches that reason's rays may go
shining through, and give fertility to the human
soil, long hidden from their genial warmth."

There can be no doubt what this means ; no
doubt that it signifies war, — war open and inces-
sant— a war of life and death — war to the utter-
most. So be it. There really is, I believe, no
other relationship possible between religion and
secularism.^

II.

Let us now proceed to the consideration of the
leading positive principles of secularism.

The first of these, as stated by Mr Holyoake,
is, "That precedence should be given to the
duties of this life over those which pertain to
another life." And the reason alleged for it is,
that *' this life being the first in certainty, ought to
have the first place in importance." " We do not
say that every man ought to give an exclusive
attention to this world, because that would be to
commit the old sin of dogmatism, and exclude the
possibility of another world, and of walking by
different light from that by which alone we are
able to walk. But as our knoiuledge is confined to
this life, and testimony and conjecture and prob-
ability are all that can be set forth with respect
1 See Appendix XXIII.

Positive Principles of Secularism. 233

to another life, we think we are justified in giving
precedence to the duties of this state, and of attach-
ing primary importance to the morahty of man to
man." ^

I\Ir Holyoake expresses his principle in this
form so that he may not exclude theists from the
secularist ranks. The message of secularism to
them is, Be more worldly and less pious ; think
much about this world and little about the next ;
much about man and little about God. I know
no message which the world needs less, seeing that
it is one which not only avowed secularists, but
millions of professed Christians, are already acting
on with all their might. It is true, however, that
all but convinced atheists and the most careless of
men have hitherto felt that doing so was wrong and
inexcusable. There are few men even among those
most engrossed by the cares and interests of this
present life, who have not at times felt that there
is another life of which it were well to think more.
Bibles and religious books, sermons and Sundays,
the monitions of conscience, the reflections of rea-
son, " sorrow dogging sin, afflictions sorted, anguish
of all sizes," the rapid flight of time, the instability
of human things, the loss of friends, the warnings
of disease, the prognostications of death, all speak
of the claims of eternity; and few have not thereby

^ 'Discussion between the Rev. Brewin Grant and G. J. Holy-
oake* (London, 1853), p. 39.

234 Anti-Theistic Theories.

been sometimes at least transiently impressed with
the conviction that these claims had been sadly
neglected. But secularism scouts the idea. It
says to the merely nominal Christian, to the man
who lives as if his religion were a dream or a lie,
that he is quite right ; and it says this, if Mr
Holyoake be a correct interpreter of it, not on the
ground that religion is a delusion or a lie, but on
the ground that the present life is more certain
and more important than another life.

This would be a very comfortable doctrine to
many minds, if it were not so irrational that only
very few will be able to believe it. There is nothing
particularly certain about the present life. What
is certain even about the present moment, except
that before you can so much as think of it it has
already ceased to be, and you can no longer either
discharge duty or enjoy pleasure in it } The present
is so evanescent that it hardly concerns us at all.
And as to the future, who is certain of what a day
or an hour will bring forth } Who can reckon with
confidence on to-morrow 1 We may easily be far
more certain of the existence of God and of the
immortality of the soul than that we shall be alive
on the morrow. The one thing certain about this
life is that it is uncertain. And as it is not only
uncertain but short at the longest, the notion that
it can be more important than eternal life is a fancy
for which there can be no possible warrant.

Positive Principles of Secularism. 235

The secularist principle in question is erroneous
for this further reason, that it falsely distinguishes
duties into duties of this life and duties which
pertain to another life. That is not a distinction
which can be reasonably defended. If there be a
God, the duties which we owe to Him are duties of
this life. If there be a future world, it is owx pres-
ent duty to take full account of that fact. On the
other hand, all our duties are duties to God, and
the way in which all our duties are discharged will
have an influence on our eternal destiny. There
is thus no absolute separation possible between
secular and spiritual duties ; and still less can they
be rationally opposed. A man who neglects any
of his so-called secular duties must look for God's
disapproval. He who would live a truly pious life
must work the works of integrity and uprightness,
of benevolence and mercy, of temperance, prudence,
and industry. A man will surely not do his duty
in and for this world worse but better because he
feels that God blesses his efforts in the cause of
truth and goodness ; and that when the labours of
life are ended, he will, if he have acquitted himself
faithfully, enter not into utter annihilation but into
eternal happiness.

It is, then, most irrational and improper advice
to tell a man who believes it even probable that
there is a God, or that there is a future world, that
he may be comparatively heedless of his duties

22)6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

and Interests as regards them without guilt or
danger. If a man disbelieve in God and the
future world, or believe that nothing can be known
about them, he cannot, of course, be reasonably
expected to give them even a subordinate place
either in thought or practice. He can owe no duty
to what does not exist, — no thought to the un-
knowable. If this world be all that our intellects
can apprehend, our sole attention should be given
to it. Secularism, in order to be self- consistent,
must be complete, must be as exclusive as Chris-
tianity, must demand for the world our whole
mind and heart, our whole strength and life. But
in this form it is obviously a doctrine which none
but convinced and confirmed atheists can do other-
wise than utterly repudiate. It is a doctrine, also,
by which the world will only lose. No good cause
on earth will be more energetically promoted, no
evil cause will be more energetically opposed, with-
out faith in God and His eternal mercy and justice
than with it. Where the love of God is not, love to
man will certainly not be stronger in consequence.
A second secularist principle is, that " science is
the providence of man, and that absolute spiritual
dependency may involve material destruction." If
men, we are told, would have things go well with
them, they m^ust discover and apply the laws of
nature. They must learn what is true before they
can do what is right, or can so act as to secure

Positive Principles of Secularism. 237

happiness. Evil can be warded off and good can
be obtained only by following the directions of
science ; prayer is useless, experience proving that
it receives no answer ; dependence on providence
is a delusion, as we are under the dominion of
general laws, and special providence there is none.

This is the substance of an argument which in
Mr Holyoake's hands assumes many forms, and
which all secularists often employ. There is noth-
ing true in it, however, to which the theist cannot
cordially assent. He believes that every law dis-
covered by science is a law of God to which man
is bound to pay due respect. The whole of science
is more sacred to him than it can possibly be to
the secularist, for, in addition to having the sacred-
ness of truth, it has the sacredness of being a
manifestation of God's character and will. Unless
a very unintelligent and inconsistent man, indeed,
he must feel more deeply than the secularist that
every truth of science is entitled to his reverence,
and to such obedience as he can give to it. He
can make no exclusions, exceptions, or reserva-
tions, but must accept science in all its length and
breadth, so far as his powers and opportunities
extend. Secularism has no peculiar, and still less
any exclusive, right to science. Theism has at
least an equal claim to it, and .to whatever good
can be derived from it.

All that properly belongs to secularism is the

238 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

denial of the utility of prayer and the existence of
providence. It opposes science to prayer and pro-
vidence. But this is what those who believe in the
two latter never do, so that the prayer and pro-
vidence attacked by secularism are conceptions or
misconceptions of its own. The theist believes in
prayer, but he does not believe in mere prayer —
in prayer which despises the use of means — in
prayer which dispenses with watching and work-
ing. He believes in providence, but he does not
believe in tempting providence — in casting himself
down from a height with the expectation that
angels will take charge of him — in a spiritual de-
pendency which neglects the aids to material
safety. The man who truly prays cannot credit
the allegation that experience proves that prayer
receives no answer. That is not his experience.
He is conscious of having daily asked for spiritual
blessings, and conscious of having daily received
them. Pie knows a sphere of existence in which
not the exception to the law but the law itself is,
Seek and ye shall find, Ask and it shall be given
unto you — a realm where sincere and earnest peti-
tions are always directly accomplished. There are
innumerable blessings, unfortunately unknown and
unvalued by the secularist, although they are far
more real and precious than bodily and external
advantages ; and these blessings, which science does
not pretend to offer us, and which general laws

Positive Principles of Secularism, 239

do not bring- us, unless prayer itself be included
among general laws, the experience of all who
have sincerely asked them, or, in equivalent terms,
the experience of all who have truly prayed testi-
fies, are never withheld. In asking for these bless-
ings, which are the main objects of prayer, we can
ask unconditionally and absolutely, directly and
definitely, not even needing, as it were, to say,
Thy will be done, since we already assuredly
know that God's will is to grant them to whoever
truly asks them, while He will not, yea cannot,
grant them to those who do not ask. Other bless-
ings, however seemingly desirable, reasonable and
pious men seek only in subordination to spiritual
blessings. They never ask for them except con-
ditionally. They are conscious that what they
think best may be really bad, and that what mere
nature shrinks from most may be for their highest
good. They ask, therefore, for apparent temporal
good only in so far as it may be agreeable to God
to give it, and with the added supplication that
He will give or withhold according to His pleas-
ure, since His pleasure is ever in His children's
w^elfare. All true prayer for temporal things is
essentially prayer that God's will in regard to
these things may become our will, through our
will being elevated and conformed to His ; it cer-
tainly never is prayer that His will, whether hid
in His eternal counsels or expressed in His gen-

240 Anti-Theistic Theories.

eral laws, should yield and give place to a will so
blind and arbitrary as ours. There is no evidence
that a single true prayer has been unanswered.
There is the evidence of every truly prayerful
man's experience that prayer is daily answered,
and that it brings light, and strength, and blessing
where science is utterly powerless and useless.

Science is admirable, and we grudge it no praise
to which it is entitled ; but we must deny that it
can be a substitute for providence. It is at the
utmost an indication of some of the rules — a
delineation of part of the plan — of providence. It
has no existence in itself, no power of its own. It
is but a name for a kind of human knowledge,
which must be appropriated and applied by a
human mind before it can be of any avail. It will
only be of use to us if we make use of it. We may
either make a good or a bad use of it. We con-
stantly see it employed to injure men as well as
to benefit them. There is as much science dis-
played on the battle-field as in the hospital or
the factory. The possession of it is no guarantee
whatever that it will be honourably and bene-
ficially employed. To use science worthily and
well we must not only be conversant with it, but
we must be good men. How are men to be good,
however — how are they to have right affections
and aims — without dependence on God, without
prayer, without Divine grace } This is a problem

Positive Principles of Secularism. 241

which secularism must consider far more seriously
than it has done. Science does not make men
good ; and where men are bad, science will be per-
verted to the service of evil. But surely nothing
which is merely instrumental, and especially noth-
ing which can be perverted, is properly designated
providence.

The third fundamental principle of secularism
is, that man has an adequate rule of life indepen-
dently of belief in God, immortality, or revelation.
Morality and not religion, it maintains, is our busi-
ness. The former is not based on the latter, nor
inseparable from it, nor even advantageously asso-
ciated with it. We can and ought to disjoin them.
Abandoning religion, we should cultivate a purely
natural and human morality. An adequate stand-
ard of such morality, secularists generally believe,
may be found in utility. Secularism has practi-
cally adopted utilitarianism as its ethical doctrine,
and maintains that it supplies a guide of conduct
which is independent of religion.

Now I do not oppose secularism at this point
by arguing that morality is founded on religion.
It is, on the whole, more correct to say that
religion is founded on morality than that morality
is founded on religion. We cannot know God as
a moral Being to whom we stand in moral rela-
tions, if we have no moral notions until we know
God, if we are unconscious of moral relationship

Q

242 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

until conscious of Divine relationship. A man, we
admit, may endeavour to regulate, and may so far
actually regulate, his life, from a regard to what is
due to humanity, without any reference to God.
He may attend to what reason and conscience tell
him should be his conduct to his fellow-men, the
lower animals, and himself, and put away every
idea of duty to the Divine Being, of regard to the
Divine will. But clearly this morality is most
defective unless it can justify itself by proof that
there is no God, or that nothing is due to God.
If there be a God, and especially if God be the
very author of our moral nature and the moral
law, to pay no moral regard to Him must be most
wicked behaviour. If there be a God, morality
must be as incomplete when religious duties are
neglected as it would be were no attention given
to personal or social duties.

Further, the morality which ignores religion is
inherently weak because inherently self-contradic-
tory. There is in the very nature of the moral
law a reference to God which cannot be denied
without disrespect to its whole authority. The
law bids man sacrifice pleasure, property, reputa-
tion, life itself, everything, if need be, to duty. But
can this moral law be a righteous and rational law
on any other supposition than that the sacrifice
will not be in vain, and that the power which,
through conscience, demands the sacrifice, will

Positive Principles of Secularism. 243

justify the demand by the final issue of things,
the eventual victory of the right over pleasure and
expediency? I cannot see how it can. The notion
of a law demanding that a man should sacrifice
not merely apparent to real good, or a lower to a
higher good, but his real and highest good — that
he should lose life and soul without hope of finding
them acrain — is the notion of a moral law which is
profoundly immoral. Conscience in enjoining such
a law must be at hopeless variance with reason and
with itself. If a man say, " I will not obey such
a law," conscience will condemn him, and yet it
must also acquit him and condemn itself. In
other words, conscience and moral law require, in
order to be self-consistent and reasonable, to be
supplemented by the notion of a moral govern-
ment and a moral Governor. The demands of
duty necessarily imply that both humanity and
nature are under the rule of a God of righteous-
ness and are moving onwards to a moral goal — the
triumph of goodness. " It is not enough to know,"
says Ullmann, " that the good has a certain author-
ity and supreme right given it by man. No ; we
must possess a much higher assurance ; we must
be convinced that the final triumph of goodness is
a part of the grand world-plan ; that the great
design of creation, the reason for which the world
exists, is, that goodness may come to its full real-
isation. And this certainly can be gained only

244 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

from the conviction that the moral law of human
life has its source in the very same power which
called the whole economy of the world into exist-
ence, and which is conducting it to its goal. If,
then, the moral law be necessarily derived from a
personal Being, even from Him who created and
governs the universe, then is the source of the
moral law none other than the living, the personal
God."

Again, religion may be admitted not to be the
foundation of morality and yet maintained to be a
sanction of morality, which supplies to it motive
and inspiration. In this respect its moral value
may be immense. What do all men stand so
much in need of as motive power to love and do
what is right } Our moral theories may be unex-
ceptionable, while our moral practices are inexcus-
able. We may have a clear and accurate appre-
hension of the whole moral code, and yet not the
heart or will to execute aright a single precept
of it. To know the moral law is not enough ; to
do it — in all its length and breadth — with the
whole heart, strength, and might, is what is re-
quired. Whence are we to get power to do it
«apart from religion t The best men the world has
fseen have confessed in all ages that they could not
find this power in themselves, and were even cer-
tain that it was not in themselves. The more I
interrogate consciousness and history, the more

Positive Principles of Secularism. 245

convinced I become that they were not deluded,
and that if we feel differently it is not because
we are better or know better than they, but be-
cause we are worse and know ourselves worse. It
is only through a power above nature that nature
can be raised above itself, and that morality can
be "lighted up with the emotion and inspiration
needful for carrying the sage along the narrow
way perfectly, for carrying the ordinary man
along it at all." And how can a man fail to
draw strength from faith in God } How can he
believe in a God of perfect justice without being
encouraged and strengthened to do justice ? or
in a God of love without having a powerful in-
ducement to love all the creatures of God, and
to perform works of love t Is there no power to
arrest and restrain from evil and ruin, in the
dread of the Divine displeasure against sin } Can
a desire to do wrong even exist along with a vivid
realisation of His presence in any heart .'' The
saintly Leighton spoke from experience, and so
as to give expression to the experience of thou-
sands of the most excellent of the earth when he
said: "One glance of God, a touch of His love,
will free and enlarge the heart, so that it can deny
all, and part with all, and make an entire renounc-
ing of all, to follow Him." Now, if I am to
defer to experience, to facts, to induction, I can-
not disregard this experience, especially as it is

246 Anti-Theistic Theories.

just what reason would lead me to expect. The
secularist may tell me that he has no such experi-
ence. Of course he has not ; he could not be a
secularist if he had. But that one man lacks is no
evidence that another man does not possess ; the
absence of experience is not counter-experience.
I may even be free to think that secularist worth
at its best — and I have no wish to disparage it —
falls greatly short of saintly excellence, and that
the want of the experience mentioned is precisely
what explains why it does.

Atheism — secularism — shuts out, then, some of
the most impressive motives to virtuous conduct
by relieving men from a sense of responsibility to
a Supreme Being, and excluding from view His
universal presence and infinite perfection ; whereas
religion leaves all secular motives to morality in-
tact, while it adds to them spiritual motives of vast
efficacy and of the most elevating and purifying
character.

The alliance of secularism with utilitarianism
has not, I think, strengthened the former in any
way, but merely narrowed it. Utilitarianism is one
of several doubtful and disputed theories in the
philosophy of ethics which can only be indepen-
dently and intelligently estimated by specially dis-
ciplined students. Ordinary men, secularists in-
cluded, must leave theories as to the foundation
of morality to philosophers, or take them on trust

Positive Prificiples of Sccula^'ism. 247

from philosophers. The mass of secularists can
be utilitarians merely by electing on very insuffi-
cient grounds to be led by Mr J. S. Mill and Pro-
fessor Bain beyond their depth. They would be
wiser to keep on the bank, or at least to keep in
shallow water.

Neither the theist nor the Christian is called
upon to refute utilitarianism, because neither
theism nor Christianity commits its adherents
to any theory as to the foundation of rectitude.
Utilitarianism in itself is neither atheistical nor
unchristian. It is clear that if there be a God
and a future life, utilitarianism cannot afford to
omit them from its calculations. If there be a
God, utility must be the indication of His will,
and it must be useful to attend to His will. If
there be a future life, it must be a very absurd
kind of utilitarianism which, while resting all
morality on pleasure and pain, yet overlooks in
its reckonings those pleasures and pains which are
far the greatest of all. At the same time, utili-
tarianism is, I hold, a speculation which no person
has yet proved, which has only been supported by
reasonings in which causes and consequences have
been strangely confounded, which proceeds from
narrow and erroneous conceptions as to the consti-
tution of human nature, and which presents no
adequate barrier to the most unworthy views of
morality. It starts from the supposition that

248 Aiiti-Theistic Theoj'ies.

pleasure is the sole end of life, the one thing desir-
able ; yet if such were the case, the selfish system,
not utilitarianism, would be the correct system of
ethics, and there would be no real morality at all.
If pleasure be the one thing a man naturally
desires, that pleasure must be his own, and he can
only seek the pleasure of others so far as that may
be conducive to his own and for the sake of his
own, — he can never do good to others for their
sake and have as much regard to the pleasures of
others as his own. Of course, utilitarianism, not-
withstanding this, inculcates disinterestedness, bids
us sacrifice our individual interest to the general
interest. But in the name of what does it bid us
do so.? Is it in the name merely of interest.!* If
interest as such is the chief end of man, why should
I sacrifice my own to that of others } If the
supreme good of life is happiness, why am I not
to conclude that the supreme good of viy life is
uiy happiness .? Utilitarianism has no satisfactory
answer to these questions. Mr Mill, on whom
chiefly secularists rely with unreasoned confidence,
did not even venture to attempt to answer them,
but contented himself with merely teUing us, what
nobody denied, that utilitarianism inculcates dis-
interestedness. I must not embark, however, on
the uiare magnum of utilitarianism.

Enough has now been said, perhaps, to show
that secularism has nothing true to offer to any

Positive Principles of Secularism. 249

class of men which they may not find elsewhere,
dissociated from the errors, the negations, which
characterise this phase of unbelief. This would
probably not fail to be almost universally seen and
acknowledged if those who in the higher ranks of
life make profession of religion would display a
heartier and a manlier interest in those who are
in the lower ranks, so that no man might be
tempted to believe that religion is one of the
things which stand either in the way of his per-
sonal happiness or of justice to his class.^

* See Appendix XXIV.

250 Aiiti-Theistic Theories,

LECTURE VII.

ARE THERE TRIBES OF ATHEISTS?

In the first Lecture of this course I stated that
some authors had denied that there were any
real or sincere atheists, but that I did not see
how this view could be successfully maintained.
In recent times a very different view has found a
large number of advocates. It has been argued
that religion, so far from being a universal, is not
even a general characteristic of man ; that so far
from there being no atheists in the world, there
are numerous tribes, and even some highly culti-
vated nations, wholly composed of atheists. The
belief to which in ancient times Cicero and Plutarch
in well-known passages gave eloquent expression —
the belief that wherever men exist they have some
form of religion — can no longer be taken for granted ;
for many now assert, and some have laboured to
prove, that there are peoples who have neither reli-
gious ideas, nor gods, nor any kind of worship. I

Nature of tJie Question. 251

shall now examine this view ; but before entering
on its direct discussion, a few preliminary remarks
seem necessary.

First, then, the question, Are there entire tribes
and nations which have no religious beliefs or prac-
tices whatever ? is a question as to a matter of fact.
It ought to be decided, therefore, solely by an
appeal to facts. But it is very apt to be decided,
and has very often been decided, by the theolog-
ical or philosophical prepossessions of those who
have undertaken to answer it. Men like Biichner,
Pouchet, O. Schmidt, show by the very tone in
which they pronounce many of the lower tribes of
men to be totally devoid of religious sentiments,
that they deem this to be a stroke which tells
strongly against religion. It is impossible, I think,
for an impartial person, even were he on the whole
to approve of their conclusion, to read what they
have written, and to mark how they have written,
on this subject, without perceiving that they have
been more animated by dislike of religion than by
the love of truth. On the other hand, with many
it is a foregone conclusion that religion must be
universal ; and their reason for affirming it to be
universal is, not that the relevant facts prove this,
but that the honour of religion seems to them to
require it. Now on neither side can this be justi-
fied. The truth alone ought to be sought, and it
can only be found in the facts. The answer to the

252 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

question, Are there peoples without rehgion ? ought,
if legitimately obtained, to be taken into account
in deciding whether or not man is an essentially
religious being;, but it is not legitimately obtained
if deduced from a foregone conclusion on that sub-
ject. Its place is among the premisses of an argu-
ment for or against the proposition that religion is
rooted in man's very nature, not among corollaries
from it.

There need not, perhaps, be great anxiety on
either side to arrive at a particular answer. Were
it made out that there are some degraded tribes
which have no conception of the supernatural,
little, it seems to me, would be proved either for or
against religion. It would only show that circum-
stances might be so unfavourable, and the minds
of men so inactive, dark, and debased, that the
religious principles or tendencies of human nature
could not manifest themselves. Of course, if it
were adequately proved that atheism is so very
widely prevalent as some maintain, — if it were
established, in other words, that not only a great
number of barbarous and semi-barbarous peoples
are devoid of all religion, but that the many mill-
ions of Buddhists in China and Japan are strictly
and properly atheists, — atheism would have con-
siderable reason for exultation. For, though even
that would certainly not prove atheism true or the-
ism false, it would convince prejudiced minds that

Preliminary Cautions. 253

human nature was not constitutionally framed for
religion. It would very much weaken, if it did not
destroy, the weighty argument for religion which the
religious history of man presents. Still we have
manifestly no right to reject the view that atheism
is thus widely spread, merely because we dislike
some of the inferences which would follow from it.
We are bound to ask, Is it thus widely spread } —
a question which can only be answered by an appeal
to facts ; and facts ought always to be studied with
minds as free as possible from preconceptions.

Not a few of the writers who have recently dis-
cussed the subject have been intent on showing
that the facts conform to the Darwinian or some
other theory of development. They have adapted
the facts to their theory, instead of testing their
theory by the facts. This is, of course, an unscien-
tific and erroneous mode of procedure. And, it
may be added, it is one to which the development
theory does not logically require us to have re-
course. It is as consistent with even the Darwinian
form of the development theory that the origin of
religion should be at any one point as at any other.
It may have been antecedent to the origin of man,
contemporaneous with it, or subsequent to it.^

I remark, in the second place, that great care and
caution require to be exercised before we draw a
negative conclusion in a matter of the kind under
^ See Appendix XXV.

254 Anti-Theistic Theories.

consideration. The question belongs to one of the
least advanced of sciences — the science of compar-
ative psychology. The religious characteristics of
men are mental peculiarities which can only be
successfully studied by those who are accustomed
to trace and analyse mental processes. But how
few of those who travel among savage peoples have
received any instruction in mental science, and
how little mental science is there of a kind calcu-
lated to serve as a guide to the correct observation
and interpretation of intellectual, moral, and reli-
gious phenomena ! The men who write those books
of travels in which distant lands and savage peoples
are described, are often more than ordinarily con-
versant with zoology, botany, and other physical
sciences, and they can describe accurately plants,
animals, geological and meteorological facts, the
bodily peculiarities of human beings, weapons,
canoes, &c., but they very seldom give much trust-
worthy information as to the mental operations of
the aborigines with whom they have come into
contact. Even such eminent observers of out-
ward nature as Mr Wallace and Mr Bates, for
example, were obviously able to make out ex-
tremely little as to the inner life of the Amazon-
ian tribes. When a traveller tells us that he found
among the natives of some barbarous land no
traces of religious belief, we must consider whether
or not he had the means and opportunities required

Prelimmary Cautions, 255

to arrive at the truth in the matter ; whether or
not he was sufficiently master of the tribal lan-
guage to converse easily in it ; whether or not he
had so thoroughly gained the confidence of those
whose religious beliefs he sought to ascertain that
they were quite open and unreserved in communi-
cating to him their most secret and most sacred
thoughts and feelings ; whether or not his inquiries
were of a really intelligent kind ; how far these
inquiries extended ; how far the impression which
he derived from his intercourse with some indi-
viduals might have been modified if he had had
more intercourse with other individuals of the
same community ; whether he knew much, little,
or nothing of their songs and traditions, &c. A
foreigner is very rarely a competent and impartial
judge. It is so even with respect to civilised peo-
ples, and must be still more so with respect to
barbarous peoples. After years of residence in
England, a Frenchman's book on English life is
apt to be on many points amusingly absurd.
What must, then, the liabilities to error be in the
case of countries rarely or never visited before, and
which the traveller merely hurries through, know-
ing imperfectly or not at all the languages spoken.^
In savage countries the stranger is generally an
object of dislike, or at least of distrust. Disinter-
ested curiosity is what an uncivilised man cannot
understand, and to question him is often of itself

2 $6 Anti-Theistic Theo7'ies.

sufficient to render him suspicious and evasive.
He is, in general, specially averse to being ques-
tioned about his religious beliefs. It doubtless
seems to him a sort of profanation to converse
regarding them with one whom he perceives to
despise them, and a humiliation to give expression
to his vague feelings and incoherent convictions on
such matters before one whom he cannot but feel
to be intellectually above him. If the questioner
be a missionary seeking to propagate the prin-
ciples of his own faith, of course the barbarian is
all the more likely to take refuge in silence and
feis^ned iG|;norance.

In confirmation of these remarks, I may quote
the following sentences from the valuable work of
Mr Tylor on ' Primitive Culture.' He says : " Even
with much time, and care, and knowledge of lan-
guage, it is not always easy to elicit from savages
the details of their theology. They try to hide
from the prying and contemptuous foreigner their
worship of gods who seem to shrink, like their
worshippers, before the white man and his mightier
Deity. Mr Sproat's experience in Vancouver's
Island is an apt example of this state of things.
He says : * I was two years among the Ahts, with
my mind constantly directed towards the subject
of their religious beliefs, before I could discover
that they possessed any ideas as to an overruling
power or a future state of existence. The traders

Prcliviinary Cautious. 257

on the coast, and other persons well acquainted
with the people, told me that they had no such
ideas, and this opinion was confirmed by conversa-
tion with many of the less intelligent savages ; but
at last I succeeded in getting a satisfactory clue.'
It then appeared that the Ahts had all the time
been hiding a whole characteristic system of re-
ligious doctrines as to souls and their migrations,
the spirits who do good and ill to men, and the
great gods above all. Thus, even where no posi-
tive proof of religious ideas among any particular
tribe has reached us, we should distrust its denial
by observers whose acquaintance with the tribe in
question has not been intimate as well as kindly."

I would remark, in the third place, that we must
beware of denying that a rude and feebly devel-
oped religion is religion at all. We must not ex-
pect too much. Many who have affirmed that such
and such peoples were destitute of religion have
done so because these peoples did not believe in
one supreme God, or had no proper conception of a
Creator or Moral Governor. They have identified
religion with theism, and represented as destitute
of religion tribes whose doctrines fell so far short
of their own that they thought them unworthy to
be designated religious. As the early Christians
were called atheists because they disowned the
gods of pagan Rome, so several heathen tribes
have been called atheists by those who could find

R

258 Anti-Theistic Theories.

among them no traces of belief in the one true
God ; or if not called atheists they have been said
to have no religion but merely superstitions. Tes-
timony of this kind, however, is quite worthless
when the point to be decided is whether religion is
universal or not. Superstition, as understood by
the writers referred to, just means false religion,
and the presence of false religion is as good evi-
dence of the existence of religion as the presence
of true religion. The distinction between religion
and superstition is a very important one in its
proper place, but it has no relevancy here, and the
employment of it in this connection is a sure sign
of confusion of thought. We have no right to
identify religion with particular phases of religion.
We have no right to pronounce a low or bad
religion no religion at all. We have no right to
include in our definition of religion the belief in
one Supreme Being, in the creation of the world,
in the immortality of the soul, or a regulated out-
ward worship, or a priesthood, &c. We are in-
quiring whether or not religion in some form is
everywhere to be discovered ; and in order to arrive
at a correct answer, we must not ignore or discard
any form of it, however humble or ignoble, how-
ever undeveloped or degenerate.

We must be content with a minimum definition,
— with the definition which comprehends all pheno-
mena admitted to be religious. Perhaps if we say

Preliminary Cautions. 259

that religion is man's belief in a being or beings
mightier than himself, and inaccessible to his
senses, but not indifferent to his sentiments and
actions, with the feelings and practices which flow
from such belief, we have a definition of the kind
required — one excluding nothing which can be
called religion, and including nothing which is only
partially present in religion. It is in this its widest
sense that we have to understand religion when we
discuss whether or not there are peoples destitute
of religion.

Of the recent writers who have undertaken to
show that there are peoples wholly without religi-
ous ideas, feelings, or practices, Sir John Lubbock
is, so far as I am aware, entitled to the credit of
having bestowed most care on the argument. He
has certainly written with more knowledge and in
a more scientific spirit than Biichner, Pouchet, O.
Schmidt, or Moritz Wagner. He has brought to-
gether a much larger number of apparent facts
than any one else on the same side has done. He
has presented them in a manner to which, so far
as tone and temper are concerned, no objection
can be fairly taken. If he err, as I think he does,
it is only his science which is at fault. I shall
follow, therefore, his statement of the argument
against the universality of religion, as presented
in the last edition of his ' Prehistoric Times,' and
examine it paragraph by paragraph, as there

26o Anti-Thcistic Theories.

seems to be no other way of satisfactorily deal-
ing with it.

Sir John Lubbock writes, then, thus : '' Accord-
ing to Spix and Martins, Bates, and Wallace, some
of the Brazilian Indians were entirely without re-
licrion. Burmeister confirms this statement, and
in the list of the principal tribes of the valley of
the Amazons, published by the Hakluyt Society,
the Chuncos are stated ' to have no religion what-
ever,' and we are told that the Curetus ' have no
idea of a Supreme Being.' The Tupinambas
of Brazil had no religion. The South American
Indians of the Gran Chaco are said by the mis-
sionaries to have ' no religious or idolatrous belief
or worship whatever ; neither do they possess any
idea of a God, or of a Supreme Being. They make
no distinction between right and wrong, and have
therefore neither fear nor hope of any present or
future punishment or reward, nor any mysterious
terror of some supernatural power, whom they
might seek to assuage by sacrifices or supersti-
tious rites.' Bates tells us ' that some of the Indian
tribes on the Upper Amazons have no idea of a
Supreme Being, and consequently have no word
to express it in their own languages.' Azara also
makes the same statement as regards many of the
South American tribes visited by him."

These are Sir John Lubbock's instances from
South American tribes. But I find that they are

Sir y. Lubbock's Instances Examined. 261

all either erroneous or insufficiently established.
Gerland (* Anthropologische Beitrage,' i. 283) has
correctly pointed out that the passage of Spix and
Martius to which Sir J. Lubbock refers, instead of
saying that the Brazilian Indians were entirely
without religion, tells us that, although engrossed
in the present, they had a certain reverence for the
moon and particular stars, believed in a Principle
of Evil, had priests who professed to have inter-
course with demons, and highly honoured certain
animals which they supposed to be messengers
from the dead. This is a very different story in-
deed. I do not doubt that, "in the list of the
principal tribes of the valley of the Amazons,
published by the Hakluyt Society, the Chuncos
are stated ' to have no religion whatever,' and we
are told that the Curetus have no idea of a Su-
preme Being ; ' " but what proof is there that these
statements are not unwarranted } It v/ill never do
to believe such statements — sweeping negatives —
merely because they happen to be printed. The
assertion that the Tupinambas of Brazil had no
religion is not to be received. It is unsupported
by any positive evidence ; contradicted by the
testimony of Stade, for example, who was nine
months a prisoner among them ; and inconsist-
ent with the fact that several later writers have
described the rehgion of the Tupi race. Tupan,
the thunder-god, was the chief deity. The mis-

262 Anti-Theistic Theories.

sionaries cited by Lubbock have obviously painted
the Indians of the Gran Chaco in too sombre
colours. Instead of making no distinction be-
tween right and wrong, the Indians of the Gran
Chaco appear to be among the best of the
American tribes. For example, they do not tor-
ture the prisoners whom they take in war, and
treat kindly the captive women and children.
About their mental life little is known, however,
as they are irreconcilably hostile to their civilised
neighbours, have no villages, and live very much
on horseback. As to the assertion of Mr Bates, it
rests on too narrow a conception of what religion
is, which, as I have already said, must not be iden-
tified with belief in one Supreme Being, or in a
Creator properly so called. Further, it greatly
needs confirmation, being contrary to the facts
and testimonies collected by J. G. Miiller and by
Waitz. It is inexplicable that Sir John Lubbock
should have ignored as he does researches so well
known and highly appreciated by students of the
natural history of man. Then we should not only
have been told that Don Felix de Azara denies
religion to many of the American tribes visited by
him, but also that he describes the religious beHefs
and practices of the very tribes which he denies
to have religion. This must strike every one who
reads his work ; and Valckenaer, D'Orbigny, and
Tylor have called attention to it. His statement

Sir J. Lubbock's histanccs Examined. 263

that the tribes he visited had no rehgion needs no
other contradiction than his own. I am glad to
perceive that Lubbock does not include, as Locke
and various writers have done, the Caribs among
peoples without a religion, for they are known to
have worshipped a god of the moon, of the sun, of
the wind, of the sea, and a number of evil spirits,
with Mabocha as their chief. But I think he
might have told us that Humboldt, whose travels
in South America were so extensive, whose explo-
rations were so varied, scientific, and successful,
and who was certainly uninfluenced by traditional
theological beliefs, found no tribes and peoples
without a religion ; and that Prince Max von
Neuwied, in all his many and wide wanderings
in Brazil, tells us that he had found no tribes of
which the members did not give manifest signs
of religious feelings.^

Sir J. Lubbock thus proceeds : " Father Bae-
gert, who lived as a missionary among the Indians
of California for seventeen years, affirms that
* idols, temples, religious worship or ceremonies,
were unknown to them, and that they neither
believed in the true and only God, nor adored
false deities ; ' and M. de Perouse also says that
' they had no knowledge of a God or of a future
state.' Golden, who had ample means of judging,
assures us that the celebrated ' five nations ' of

^ See Appendix XXVI.

264 Anti-Theistic Theories.

Canada 'had no public worship nor any word for
God;' and Hearne, who lived amongst the North
American Indians for years, and was perfectly
acquainted with their habits and language, says
the same of some tribes on Hudson's Bay."

Now to the assertion of Father Baegert we may
oppose a most interesting account of the faith of
the Californians left by Father Boscana, one of
the earliest missionaries to Upper California. Mr
Bancroft, whose researches have been most labo-
rious and extensive, informs us that " the Califor-
nian tribes, taken as a whole, are pretty uniform
in the main features of their theogonic beliefs.
They seem, without exception, to have had a
hazy conception of a lofty, almost supreme being ;
for the most part referred to as a Great Man, the
Old Man Above, the One Above ; attributing to
him, however, as is usual in such cases, nothing
but the vaguest and most negative functions and
qualities. The real practical power that most
interested them, who had most to do with them
and they with him, was a demon, or body of
demons, of a tolerably pronounced character"
(iii. 158). The view adopted by Sir J. Lubbock
reg-arding- the Californians is irreconcilable also
with the series of testimonies adduced by Waitz.
Then the negative reports of Colden (i/SS) ^^d
of Hearne (1769-1772) are not to be allowed to
outweigh the contrary reports of numerous other

Sh' y. Lubbock's Instances Examined. 265

witnesses no less credible. Further, we are not
justified in concluding that a people has no reli-
gion because it has " no public worship nor any
word for God." It is clearly proved that the
Canadian Indians believed in supernatural beings,
and, in fact, in legions of spirits. The sorcery
prevalent among them may be viewed as a per-
verted form of worship. The Koniagas even
believe in a chief deity, the Thlinkets in a creator
of all beings and things, the Haidahs suppose the
great solar spirit to be the Creator and Supreme
Ruler, &c. &c. Belief in a former of the universe
is, in fact, the rule among the North American
Indians. The exceptions are few and doubtful.^
Sir J. Lubbock, passing from North America to
Polynesia and Australasia, thus continues: "In
the ' Voyage de I'Astrolabe ' it is stated that the
natives of the Samoan and Solomon Islands in
the Pacific had no religion ; and in the * Voyage of
the Novara' the same is said of the Caroline
Islanders. The Samoans ' have neither moraes,
nor temples, nor altars, nor ofi"erings, and con-
sequently none of the sanguinary rites observed
at the other groups. In consequence of this, the
Samoans were considered an impious race; and
their impiety became proverbial with the people
of Rarotonga, for, when upbraiding a person who
neglected the worship of the gods, they would call
^ See Appendix XXVII.

266 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

him 'a godless Samoan.' On Damood Island,
between Australia and New Guinea, Jukes could
find no 'traces of any religious belief or obser-
vance.' Duradawan, a sepoy, who lived some
time with the Andaman Islanders, maintained
that they had no religion, and Dr Mouatt believes
his statements to be correct. Some of the Aus-
trahan tribes, also, are said to have no religion.
In the Pellew Islands Wilson found no religious
buildings, nor any sign of religion. Mr Wallace,
who had excellent opportunities for judging, and
whose merits as an observer no one can question,
tells us that, among the people of Wanumbai, in
the Aru Islands, he could find no trace of a reli-
gion ; adding, however, that he was but a short
time among them."

It is very strange that Sir John should continue
through three editions of his work to represent the
Samoan Islanders as destitute of religious beliefs.
Williams, in the passage quoted, says nothing of
the kind, but, what is very different indeed, that
they were considered impious and called godless
by their neighbours, because they did not worship
in the same manner as they did. They were
called "godless " by the people of Rarotonga, just
as the early Christians were called godless by the
pagan Romans. Williams merely cites the Raro-
tongan proverb, but Sir John asks us to endorse
it. That is impossible, especially since the Rev.

Si7' y. Lubbock's Instances Examined. 267

George Turner has given us, in his 'Nineteen
Years in Polynesia' (1861), a valuable and elabo-
rate account of the Samoan religion. That the
natives of the Samoan Islands should ever have
been stated to have no religion, shows only how
little credit ought to be attached to general state-
ments of the kind, when not founded on close and
careful examination. The treachery and ferocity
of the Solomon Islanders have prevented Euro-
peans acquiring much acquaintance with their
characters, but that they are not without religious
beliefs is proved by their having idols, sometimes
ten or more feet high, to which they make offer-
ings of food. Gerland, one of the leading ethnol-
ogists of Germany, has shown that the inhabi-
tants of the Caroline Islands are not destitute
of religious conceptions. Jukes was but a short
time in Damood Island, one of the Torres Islands,
and Meinicke has described the religious beliefs
prevalent in these islands. That ''Duradawan, a
sepoy, who lived some time with the Andaman
Islanders, maintained that they had no religion,"
by no means proves that they have none. A far
more intelligent man. Father Mersenne, so well
known as the friend of Descartes, spent most of
his life in Paris, and yet affirmed that there were
sixty thousand atheists in that city. Dr Mouatt
had no intimate or lengthened intercourse with
the Andaman Islanders. Sir J. Lubbock does

268 Antl-Thcistic Theories.

injustice to Captain Wilson, who believed himself
to have ascertained that the Pellew Islanders had
some notions of a religion, and certainly believed
in a future life. It is improbable that the Wa-
numbai are without religion, since it appears from
the testimonies of Kolff, of Wallace himself, &c.,
that the other Aru Islanders are not. Gabelentz,
in his work on the ' Melanesian Languages,' has
shown that words for God, Spirit, &c., are very
widely diffused over the Australasian and Poly-
nesian areas. Our author perhaps deserves com-
mendation for not having spoken more copiously
and confidently about the Australian tribes. Most
writers who maintain that the atheism of igno-
rance is man's original condition, lay great em-
phasis on the alleged absence of religion among
the natives of Australia. But in doing so they
rest on what is only alleged and not real. In
proof, I may quote from Mr Tylor, who is ad-
mitted to be second to no one in this country as
an ethnologist. He says : " It is not unusual for
the very writer who declares in general terms the
absence of religious phenomena among some sav-
age people, himself to give evidence that shows
his expressions to be misleading. Thus Dr Lang
not only declares that the aborigines of Australia
have no idea of a supreme divinity, creator, and
judge — no object of worship, no idol, temple, or
sacrifice, but that, 'in short, they have nothing

Sir y. Lubbock's histaiiccs Examined. 269

whatever of the character of religion, or of reli-
gious observance, to distinguish them from the
beasts that perish/ More than one writer has
since made use of this telling statement, but with-
out referring to certain details which occur in the
very same book. P'rom these it appears that a
disease like smallpox, which sometimes attacks
the natives, is ascribed by them ' to the influence
of Budyah, an evil spirit who delights in mis-
chief ; ' that when the natives rob a wild bees'
hive, they generally leave a little of the honey for
Buddai ; that at certain biennial gatherings of the
Queensland tribes, young girls are slain in sac-
rifice to propitiate some evil divinity ; and that,
lastly, according to the evidence of the Rev. W.
Ridley, 'whenever he has conversed with the
aborigines, he found them to have definite tradi-
tions concerning supernatural beings, — Baiame,
whose voice they hear in thunder ; Turramullan,
the chief of demons, who is the author of disease,
mischief, and wisdom, and appears in the form of
a serpent at their great assemblies,' &c. By the
concurring testimony of a crowd of observers, it is
known that the natives of Australia were at their
discovery, and have since remained, a race with
minds saturated with the most vivid belief in
souls, demons, and deities."^

Sir John Lubbock next seeks proofs of his thesis

^ See Appendix XXVIII.

2/0 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

in India. " The Yenadies and the Villees, accord-
ing to Dr Short, are entirely without any behef in
a future state ; and again, Hooker tells us that the
Lepchas of Northern India have no religion."

Now the former of these statements, even if true,
is not relevant. Belief in a future state is not to
be identified with religion. The ancient Hebrews
have often been accused of ignorance of a future
life, but no one has ever said that they were
without any religion. Then, the account of Dr
Hooker's testimony regarding the Lepchas is most
inadequate and misleading. Here are Dr Hooker's
words from his Himalayan Journals : " The Lep-
chas profess no religion, though acknowledging
the existence of good and bad spirits. To the
good they pay no heed. ' Why should we } ' they
say : ' the good spirits do us no harm ; the evil
spirits, who dwell in every rock, grove, and moun-
tain, are constantly at mischief, and to them we
must pray, for they hurt us.' Every tribe has a
priest-doctor ; he neither knows nor attempts to
practise the healing art, but he is a pure exorcist,
all bodily ailments being deemed the operation of
devils, who are cast out by prayers and invocations.
Still they acknowledge the Lamas to be very holy
men, and were the latter only moderately active,
they would soon convert all the Lepchas " (i.
135). It was absurd and self-contradictory in Dr
Hooker to begin these lines with the words, " The

Sir y. Lubbock's Instances Examhicd. 271

Lepchas profess no religion." These words should
clearly not have been there, and Sir J. Lubbock
would then not have been able to improve them
into " the Lepchas of Northern India have no re-
ligion." It is clear from Hooker's own words that
such is very far from being the case. Substantially
his account is in perfect agreement with that con-
tained in Colonel Dalton's 'Descriptive Ethnol-
ogy of Bengal, compiled from Official Documents.'
Colonel Dalton, chiefly on the authority of Dr A.
Campbell (see Note in the Journal of the Asiatic
Society, Bengal, 1840), informs us that the Lepchas
are mostly Buddhists, and have priests, who are
educated partly at home and partly in the great
monasteries of Thibet. All testimony regarding
the Lepchas agrees in representing them as a
physically handsome, constitutionally timid and
peaceable, morally affectionate, and religiously
susceptible people.

I pass on to what Sir John has to say of Africa,
so far as the subject in hand is concerned. " Cap-
tain Grant could find ' no distinct form of religion '
in some of the comparatively civilised tribes visit-
ed by him. According to Burchell, the Bachapins
(Caffres) had no form of worship or religion. They
thought * that everything made itself, and that trees
and herbs grew by their own will.' They had no
belief in a good deit)^ but some vague idea of an
evil being. Indeed the first idea of God is almost

272 Aiiti-TJieistic Theo7'ies.

always as an evil spirit. Speaking of the Foulahs
of Wassoulo, in Central Africa, Caillie states : * I
tried to discover whether they had any religion of
their own — whether they worshipped fetishes, or the
sun, moon, or stars — but I could never perceive any
religious ceremony among them.' Again, he says
of the Bambaras, that, 'like the people of Was-
soulo, they have no religion, — adding, however,
that they have great faith in charms. Burton also
states that some of the tribes in the lake districts of
Central Africa ' admit neither God, nor angel, nor
devil.' Speaking of Hottentots, Le Vaillant says :
' Je n'y ai vu aucune trace de religion, rien qui ap-
proche meme de I'idee d'un etre vengeur et remu-
nerateur. J'ai vecu assez longtemps avec eux, chez
eux au sein de leurs deserts paisibles; j'ai fait,
avec ces braves humains, des voyages dans des
regions fort eloignees ; nulle part je n'ai rencon-
tre rien qui ressemble a la religion.' Livingstone
mentions that on one occasion, after talking to a
Bushman for some time, as he supposed, about the
Deity, he found that the savage thought that he
was speaking about Sekomi, the principal chief of
the district."

This passage is as incorrect as those which pre-
cede it. Captain Grant, in his walk across Africa,
could not be expected to acquire an intimate know-
ledge of the tribes he visited, and his not finding a
''distinct form of religion" among some of these

Sir J. Lubbock's Instances Examined. 273

tribes can be no proof of their not possessing even
the rudiments of religion. The lower forms of
religion are occasionally very indistinct. What
Biirchell affirms of the want of religion in a partic-
ular Caffre tribe, is more than counterbalanced by
the fact that the Cafifre tribes in general are well
known to have religious beliefs and rites ; while,
even according to the account of Burchell, the tribe
mentioned had a vague idea of an evil being. The
Foulahs are mostly Mohammedans, and what Cail-
lie says about the absence of religion among them
can only be true of individuals over a limited area,
and in exceptionally unfavourable circumstances.
The warmest of Mr Burton's friends will hardly
include among his merits caution and moderation
either of judgment or statement. Le Vaillant's
estimate of the Hottentots is inconsistent with
the testimonies of many other travellers. The
story about Livingstone and the Bushman prob-
ably illustrates rnerely the difficulty of conver-
sational intercourse between a Scotchman and a
Bushman. It should at least have been remem-
bered that Livingstone has written in regard to the
peoples of South Africa, "There is no need for
beginning to tell even the most degraded of these
people of the existence of a God, or of a future
state— the facts being universally admitted. . . .
On questioning intelligent men among the Back-
wains as to their former knowledge of good and

S

274 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

evil, of God, and of a future state, they have scouted
the idea of any of them ever having been without
a tolerably clear conception on all these subjects."
Sir John Lubbock has done well not to endorse
Sir Samuel Baker's statements as to tribes without
religion visited by him in Central Africa. Their
inaccuracy was generally detected as soon as pub-
lished. Other travellers had discovered and de-
scribed what Sir Samuel fancied did not exist.
Professor O. Schmidt refers us to " the Niam-Niam,
that highly interesting dwarf- people of Central
Africa/' as an example of a people " without a
word for God." It so happens that the Niam-
Niam are not a dwarf-people, and have a word for
God. Prof Schmidt should have known some-
thing about Schweinfurth's book before appealing
to it.

The next case adduced by our author is very
instructive. He writes : " Speaking of the Esqui-
maux, Ross says, ' Ervick, being the senior of the
first party that came on board, was judged to be
the most proper person to question on the subject
of religion. I directed Sacheuse to ask him if he
had any knowledge of a Supreme Being ; but after
trying every word used in his own language to
express it, he could not make him understand
what he meant. It was distinctly ascertained that
he did not worship the sun, moon, stars, or any
1 See Appendix XXIX.

Sir jf. LjihbocJSs Instances Examined. 275

image or living creature. When asked what the
sun or moon was for, he said to give light. He
had no knowledge or idea how he came into being,
or of a future state ; but said that when he died he
would be put into the ground. Having fully ascer-
tained that he had no idea of a beneficent Supreme
Being, I proceeded, through Sacheuse, to inquire if
he believed in an evil spirit ; but he could not be
made to understand what it meant. . . . He was
positive that in this incantation he did not receive
assistance from anything, nor could he be made to
understand what a good or an evil spirit meant.'"

Now, I ask, is it reasonable to conclude from the
fact that a single Esquimaux, when questioned by
Captain Ross, through an interpreter who could
only speak a different dialect from that of the per-
son questioned, did not give evidence of possessing
any definite ideas regarding a Divine Being, that
there are Esquimaux peoples without any religious
opinions or sentiments 1 The Esquimaux peoples
are known to have a tolerably developed religion.
They suppose the world to be ruled by various
supernatural beings, who are overruled by a su-
preme being. To certain men, called " angakok,"
there is supposed to be granted a certain control
over the ordinary deities for purposes of good.^

Sir John Lubbock thus concludes his argument :
" In some cases travellers have arrived at their
^ See Appendix XXX.

2^6 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

views very much to their own astonishment. Thus
Father Dobritzhoffer says : ' Theologians agree in
denying that any man in possession of his reason
can, without a crime, remain ignorant of God for
any length of time. This opinion I warmly de-
fended in the University of Cordoba, where I fin-
ished the four years' course of theology begun at
Gratz, in Styria. But what was my astonishment
when, on removing from thence to a colony of
Abipones, I found that the whole language of these
savages does not contain a single word which ex-
presses God or a divinity. To instruct them in
religion, it was necessary to borrow the Spanish
word for God, and insert into the catechism " Dios
ecnam coogerik," *' God the creator of things." '
We have already observed a case of this kind in
Kolben, who, in spite of the assertions of the na-
tives themselves, felt quite sure that certain dances
must be of a religious character, ' let the Hotten-
tots say what they will.' Again, Mr Matthews,
who went out to act as missionary among the Fue-
gians, but was soon obliged to abandon the hope-
less task, observed only one act * which could be
supposed devotional.' He sometimes, we are
told, * heard a great howling or lamentation about
sunrise in the morning ; and upon asking Jemmy
Button what occasioned the outcry, he could ob-
tain no satisfactory answer : the boy only saying,
" People very sad, cry very much." ' This appears

Sir y. LubbocJcs Instances Examined. 277

so natural and sufficient an explanation, that why
the outcry should be supposed devotional, I must
confess myself unable to see. Once more, Dr
Hooker states that the Khasias, an Indian tribe,
had no religion. Colonel Yule, on the contrary,
says that they have ; but he admits that breaking
hens' eggs is ' the principal part of their religious
practice,' But if most travellers have expected to
find a religion everywhere, and have been con-
vinced, almost against their will, that the reverse
is the case, it is quite possible that there may have
been others who have too hastily denied the exist-
ence of a religion among the tribes they visited.
However this may be, those who assert that even
the lowest savages believe in a Supreme Deity,
affirm that which is directly contrary to the evi-
dence. The direct testimony of travellers on this
point is indirectly corroborated by their other
statements. How, for instance, can a people who
are unable to count their own fingers, possibly
raise their mind so far as to admit even the rudi-
ments of a religion t "

On this paragraph I have to make the follow-
ing remarks. Father Dobritzhoffer went out to the
Abipones, expecting to find among them a know-
ledge of God, and not finding even a word to
designate God, he concluded that they had no
religion. He expected, that is to say, far too
much ; and not finding it. he concluded that there

278 Anti-Theistic Theories.

was nothing whatever in the way of religion to
find. Missionaries have erred thus very often.
They have identified rehgion with true rehgion ;
and when they could not discover the latter, they
have denied the existence of the former. From
the want of a word for God in a language, it cannot
be fairly inferred that those who use the language
have no belief in gods, no religious notions or feel-
incrs. The Australians have no word for tree, or
fish, or bird, but they are certainly not ignorant of
trees, fishes, and birds. This is not all, for Dobritz-
hoffer, too, disproves his own assertion. He tells
us how the Abipones paid a certain reverence to
the stars, and, in particular, how they associated
the Pleiades with a chief deity — a highest spiritual
agent ; how they believed in evil spirits, in sorcery,
&c. As to Kolben and the Hottentots, I do not
understand on what grounds Sir John Lubbock
suppresses the fact that Kolben informs us that
the Hottentots of his time had a firm faith in a
supreme power, which they termed Gounya Te-
quoa, or the god of all gods, although they paid
him no adoration ; and that they had an evil deity,
called Toutouka, whom they supposed to be the
author of all mischief in the universe, and to whom
they offered sacrifices in order to appease his ill-
temper. That the Hottentots worship the moon is
quite certain, apart from Kolben's testimony ; and
Sir John Lubbock had no right whatever to set

Sir J. Luhboclcs Instances Examined. 279

Kolben's testimony aside. The Fuegians are not
known to have any well-defined notions of religion,
but they have superstitions and conjurors. We re-
quire to wait for information as to what their beliefs
really are. Mr Darwin and Mr Matthews seem to
have been both dependent on the Jemmy Button
mentioned by Sir John Lubbock in their inquiries
regarding the religious sentiments of the Fuegians.
I must confess I cannot consider Jemmy's explana-
tion of the facts described by Mr Matthews as quite
so satisfactory as Sir John thinks it. That people
should cry very much when they are sad is natural
enough ; but the peculiarity of the case is the cry-
ing at a particular time, is the assembling to howl
or lament at sunrise. No amount of sadness, it
seems to me, can account for that; while, of course,
a Httle religious belief would. Then, as to the
Khasias, the testimony of Dr Hooker is again mis-
represented precisely as in the case of the Lepchas,
while nothing is adduced to disprove that of Colo-
nel Yule. The Khasias recognise the existence of
a Supreme Being, although they only worship the
inferior spirits, who are supposed to inhabit the
mountains, glens, and heaths. They offer liba-
tions to the gods before drinking. ''Breaking
hens' eggs" is their method of taking auguries —
and perhaps one not more ridiculous than those
practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans.^
1 See Appendix XXXI.

28o Anti-Theistic Theories.

I have now laid before you the evidence which
Sir John Lubbock has been able to bring forward
in support of the position that there are many
peoples and tribes wholly destitute of religion.
He has shown more industry in the collection of
facts favourable to the conclusion which he draws
than any other ethnologist or anthropologist, so
far as I know, and for his industry he certainly
deserves commendation ; but it is impossible to
credit him with having carefully and critically
ascertained what are to be regarded as facts and
what not. I do not charge him with having al-
lowed any theological prepossessions to bias his
judgments as to the facts. I gladly acknowledge
that he displays nothing of the utterly unscientific
and anti- religious bitterness which characterises
what some have written on this subject. I look
at his proposition and proof purely from an anthro-
pological point of view, and I find that the pro-
position is not made out, that the proof is wholly
unsatisfactory — for the so-called facts which consti-
tute the proof are not really facts. But " how," he
asks, " can a people who are unable to count their
own fingers, possibly raise their minds so far as
to admit even the rudiments of a religion.?" I
answer, first, by asking. Is it then quite certain
that there are peoples unable to count their own
fineers } T know that the statement has become
a commonplace among anthropologists, but I do

Sir J. Lubboclcs Instances Examined. 281

not find that there is much evidence produced for
it. The Australians, according to Sir John Lub-
bock, cannot count above three, and have no word
for any higher number. Yet one of his own vo-
cabularies shows how they count far above three.
Thus tres, their word for three, thrice repeated is
nine, which shows that these Australians can not
only count above three but can count by multi-
plying threes. The evidence on which anthro-
pologists have concluded that the Australians
cannot count above three would prove that Eng-
lishmen cannot count thirteen and upwards, since
thirteen, fourteen, &c., are only three and ten,
four and ten, &c., put together. But, further,
whether the Australians can or can not count their
own fingers, it is certain that they have the rudi-
ments of a religion ; and we are bound to accept
what is fact whether we can account for it or not,
whether we can reconcile it with some other fact
or not.

I do not venture to maintain that there are no 1
tribes, no peoples, wholly destitute of religion,
wholly without any sense of dependence on in-
visible powers. It may be that there are. I only
say that, so far as I can judge, it has not been
made out that there is any such tribe, any such
people ; and the examination of Sir John Lub-
bock's instances, far from leading me to his con-
clusion, leaves me with the conviction that, if

282 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

there be any such peoples they must be very few
indeed.

But I must not overlook that an attack on
the universality of religion, or at least on the uni-
versality of belief in a God, has been made from
another side. The very marvellous system of
thought called Buddhism, which originated in
India about five hundred years before the advent
of Christ, has spread over a greater area of the
earth, and gained more adherents than even Chris-
tianity, and by peaceful means — by the power of
persuasion — not by force of arms, not by persecu-
tion. Disregarding all distinctions of class, nation,
and race, and enforcing no social laws or theories,
but concentrating its whole energy on showing the
way to eternal deliverance from evil, it has propa-
gated itself in a much more remarkable manner
than Mohammedanism. Although driven out of
India — Nepaul excepted — after having flourished
there for centuries, its devoted missionaries have
spread it over Ceylon and Burmah, China and
Japan, Tartary and Thibet. But Buddhism, we
are told, is a system of atheism ; and the three
hundred millions of people by whom it is em-
braced, ignore in the most absolute manner the
notion not only of a future state but of a deity.
" There is not the slightest trace of a belief in
God in all Buddhism," says M. Barthelemy Saint-
Hilaire ; and many others speak as strongly.

Arc Buddhists Atheists ? 283

A very little examination, however, shows that
such statements are stronger than they ought to
be, and that they cannot but mislead unless they
are explained and limited. In this religion which
is characterised as atheistic, gods are represented as
appearing on numerous occasions. In the legend
of Buddha the gods of the Hindu pantheon are
familiar personages, and never is a shadow of doubt
thrown on their existence. " It is not enough to
say," wTites Saint-Hilaire, "that Buddha does not
believe in God. He ignores Him in such a com-
plete manner, that he does not even care about
denying His existence ; he does not care about
trying to abolish Him ; he neither mentions such
a being in order to explain the origin or the anterior
existence of man and his present life, nor for the
purpose of conjecturing his future state and his
eventual freedom. Buddha has no acquaintance
whatsoever with God, and, quite given up to his
own heroic sorrows and sympathies, he has never
cast his eyes so far or so high." Now, if by God
be meant the true God, this is what no one will
either deny or be surprised at ; but every account
of Buddhism, M. Saint-Hilaire's included, and all
the literature of Buddhism yet made known to the
European world, agree in showing that Buddha
has always been supposed by the millions of his
followers to have been familiar with gods, and
heavens, and hells, innumerable. You will not

284 Anti-Theistic Theories.

read long in almost any Buddhist book without
meeting with gods. The Lalitavistara introduces
us to Buddha before his incarnation. " The scene
is laid in heaven. Surrounded and adored by
those that are adored, the future Buddha an-
nounces that the time has come for him to assume
a mortal body, and recalls to the assembled gods
the precepts of the law. When in the bosom of
his mother Maya Devi he receives the homage
of Brahma, of f akra the master of the gods, of
the four kings of the inferior gods, of the four
goddesses, and of a multitude of deities. When he
enters into the world the divine child is received
by Indra the king of the gods, and Brahma the
lord of creatures. When arrived at manhood, and
hesitating to break the bonds which attached him
to the world, it is the god Hridera — the god of
modesty — who encourages him and reminds him
that the hour of his mission has come. Before he
can become Buddha he has to be tempted by
Mara, the god of the love of sin and of death, and
to struggle against the hosts of hell commanded
by their chief." And so on, and so on. Every-
where gods, even in what M. Saint-Hilaire himself
regards as one of the most ancient and authentic
records of primitive Buddhism. But all these
legends, he says, are " extravagances." Well, there
is no doubt about that, but they are extravagances
of religious belief. And the very absurdity and

A re Buddhists A t heists ? 285

naivete of them testifies to the energy of the belief
In spite of its absurdities, and by its very absurd-,
ities even, the Buddhistic legend testifies that
Buddhists believe in gods. But an atheism which
includes a belief in gods is an atheism of a very
strange kind, or rather a system which everywhere
avows the existence and action of gods is not
usually, and can only very improperly be, called
atheism.

But, it will be said, Brahma, Indra, and all the
other deities recognised in Buddhism, will dis-
appear with the universe itself. They are not
regarded as truly gods, because they are not
regarded as eternal. They have come out of
nothingness and will go back to nothingness.
Now observe that if we are to reason in this way,
if we are to call every system atheistic which
implies atheism, we must come to the conclusion
that there is no religion in the world except where
a consistent theism prevails ; that all forms of
polytheism and of pantheism are simply varie-
ties of atheism. For polytheism and pantheism
are both essentially self-contradictory, and must
logically pass over either into atheism or theism.
There is no consistent, independent, middle term
between these two. What is not the one, ought,
logically considered, to be the other.

All the Greek gods and goddesses were believed
by their worshippers to have been born, or, at least.

286 Anti-Theistic Theories.

to have had an origin ; there was admitted to have
been a time when they were not, and it was felt
that there might be a time when they would not
be. Whence had they come ? Their worshippers
did not clearly put and resolutely face the ques-
tion, but the question existed, and it could only
be answered in an atheistic or in a theistic man-
ner. If they came out of nothing, or were the
products of chance, or the effects of eternal matter
and its inherent powers, then what underlay this
polytheism was atheism. If, on the other hand,
these gods were the creatures of a self- existent,
eternal Mind, what underlay the polytheism was
theism. But if theism had been clearly appre-
hended it would have been seen at once that there
was no evidence for the polytheism at all ; that it
was a system of fictions and fancies which dis-
honoured the one all-sufficient God. And what
is true in this respect of Greek polytheism is true
of all polytheism. In so far as it falls short of
theism it involves atheism. It is not, however, on
this account to be called atheism. It is to be de-
scribed as what it is, not as what it involves.

Then, all pantheism involves atheism. An im-
personal reason, an impersonal God, is not, if you
insist on self- consistency, on logical definiteness
and thoroughness, a reason, a god at all. A reason
which is unconscious and which belongs to no one
subject, a God who has no existence in himself.

A re Buddhists A t heists ? 287

who has no proper self, is not logically distinguish-
able from what is not reason, from what is not
God. But in describing a system we have no right
to represent it as being what we hold it ought
logically to have been. Pantheism may, like poly-
theism, be logically bound either to rise to theism
or to sink to atheism, but it is, for all that, neither
theism nor atheism.

Hence I maintain that although Buddhism
should be logically resolvable into atheism, al-
though its fundamental principles should be shown
logically to involve atheism, Buddhists are not to
be described as atheists. Even millions of men
may stultify themselves and accept a creed the
fundamental principles of which involve monstrous
consequences which few, if any, of its adherents
deduce from them. It is clear and certain that
the adherents of Buddhism are, as a rule, not
atheists in any sense which shows that the human
heart can dispense with belief in Divine agency.
Their Buddhism does not prevent their believing
in many gods, and this at once puts them on a
level with polytheists. Besides, Buddha is re-
garded by them as a god. When Saint- Hilaire
denies that they have deified Buddha, he main-
tains a position which is contradicted by every
Buddhist writing and by every Buddhist believer
in the world, unless he means that they have not
invested him with all the attributes of the true

g - 288 Aiiti-Tlieistic Theories.

A God, which is what no one, of course, ever thought
of asserting that they had done. It is incontest-
able, indeed, that they suppose Buddha to have
i been once, or rather to have been often, a man,
'" and even to have been a rat, a frog, a crow, a
vhare, and many other creatures ; but it is as incon-
testable that they suppose him not only to have
been four times Mahu-Brahma, the supreme god
of the Hindus, but in becoming Buddha, to have
raised himself higher than the highest gods, and
to have attained omnipotence, omniscience, and
other divine attributes. We cannot say that they
do not believe him to have been a god because
they believe him to have been born, while we
admit that the Greeks believed Jupiter to have
been a god, although they also believed him to
have been born ; we cannot say that they did not
believe him to have been a god, because they be-
lieve him to have gone into Nirvana, even granting
Nirvana to be non-existence, while we admit that
the ancient Germans believed Odin to be a god,
although they also believed that he would be
devoured by the wolf Fenris.

An impartial examination of the relevant facts,
Jt appears to me, shows that religion is . virtikaii^
\ universal. The world has been so framed, and the
mind so constituted, that man, even in his low-
est estate, and over all the world, gives evidence
of possessing religious perceptions and emotions.

Religion virtually Universal. 289

However beclouded with ignorance, sensuousness,
and passion his nature may be, certain rays from a
higher world reach his soul. However degraded
and perverted it may be, there remains a some-
thing within it which the material and the sensu-
ous cannot satisfy, and which testifies that God is
the true home of the Spirit. ^

^ See Appendix XXXII.

290 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

LECTURE VIII.

PESSIMISM.

In the concluding portion of last lecture I argued
that the millions of persons who profess the doc-
trine of Buddha were not to be summarily de-
scribed as atheists and denied to have any reli-
gious beliefs or aspirations. I did not, however,
argue that Buddhism was not logically resolv-
able into atheism, or maintain that it did not
very distinctly involve atheism. In all heathen
religions there are atheistical tendencies. In
every form of pantheism and of polytheism un-
belief is interwoven with faith. But there is pro-
bably no religion which comes so near atheism,
or which to the same extent involves atheism,
as Buddhism. It originated in the essentially
atheistical conviction that the existence of the
universe is an illusion, and the existence of sentient
and rational beings an incalculable evil, — in the
settled contempt for nature and life, which was

Ancient and Modern Pessimism. 291

the logical outcome of Brahminical pantheism, and
a result at which all Hindu philosophy arrived.
The atheism and the pessimism which came to
light in Buddhism were latent in Brahminism from
the first, and became prominent and conspicuous
in various forms in the course of its development.
Instead of looking at the phenomena of the world,
history, and mind, as manifestations of the power,
wisdom, and goodness of an infinite Creator and
Father, who by means of them discloses Himself
to his children, and educates and disciplines them
for a good and gracious issue, the thinkers of
India, even when pronouncing these phenomena
to be intimately connected with the substance of
Divinity, the sole existence, irreligiously viewed
them as mischievous mockeries, fitted only to
deceive and enslave all that was noble in human
nature. The atheism and pessimism of Buddhism
were the ripened fruits of that root of bitterness.

In quite recent times a system very similar to
Buddhism has appeared in Germany, and been
advocated by Schopenhauer, Von Hartmann, and
numerous other writers. Like Buddhism, it has
sprung from a scepticism which was itself the pro-
duct of pantheism. It is the atheism of pantheism
evolved into a rival doctrine. It has already been
presented to the German people in various forms,
and has acquired a somewhat startling popularity
among them. There can be no doubt that many

292 Anti-Tlieistic Tlieories.

who do not accept it in its entirety largely sym-
pathise with its dogmas as to life, death, and
eternity. In all probability it will obtain, before
long, literary representatives in this country, who,
while finding perhaps few to adopt the fantastic
metaphysics of its founders, may be easily able
widely to diffuse some of its falsest principles and
dreariest conclusions. I entertain not the least
hope that it will soon entirely disappear. Those
who regard it as a merely transient and superficial
fashion of thought, as a touch or shade of spec-
ulative disease which will speedily vanish away,
cannot perceive what is, however, manifestly the
truth, that, with all its defects, it has the great
merit of distinctly raising a question of enormous
importance, which has been strangely overlooked
even by philosophy ; and further, that it is neither
an inconsistent nor an unreasonable answer to that
question, certain widely prevalent principles being
presupposed.

The question to which I refer is, What is the
worth of life } It is a question which few healthy
and busy practical men, especially if moderately
successful, ever ask, even in its immediate personal
application to their own ambitions and enterprises.
It generally needs disappointment, sickness, or
grief to raise even momentarily the suspicion that
human life may be but a vanity, and its schemes
only shadows ; and the vast majority of those on

Mission of Pessiviisni. 293

whom this suspicion is forced, strive to get rid of it
as quickly as they can. In natures with a thirst
for happiness too deep to be quenched in the
shallow waters of experience, or with a keen per-
ception of the law of good, and an equally keen
consciousness of a law in the members warring
against it and bringing it into subjection, dis-
appointment with this life, if not counteracted by
faith in one which is better, may settle into the
conviction that the world is but

" One desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness."

In times when society is disorganised, when old
faiths and old ideals have lost their charm and
power, when culture is widely spread, but corrup-
tion is still more diffused, a feeling of life's nothing-
ness may be profound and prevalent, and may ex-
press itself in many forms. And, in fact, a vein of
pessimism may be traced almost throughout his-
tory. Its throbs may be heard in the sad refrains
of many a poet — as, for instance, within the present
century, in those of a Byron in England, a Heine
and Lenau in Germany, a Musset and Ackermann
in France, a Leopardi in Italy, and a Campoamor
in Spain.

It was reserved, however, for the modern pessimist
philosophers of Germany distinctly to recognise that

294 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

the question as to the worth of human hfe deserved
to be regarded as one of the chief problems of
thought. It was reserved for them also to present
as a reasoned and even demonstrated answer to it,
what had previously only been uttered as a cry of
agony or weariness, that life was worth less than
nothing, — that non-existence was better than ex-
istence. Although all the philosophers of ancient
Greece and Rome had sought to ascertain the end
of life, they all tacitly agreed to identify it with the
good. None who came after them until Schopen-
hauer appeared, ventured directly and explicitly to
deny the truth of that assumption. But such a
denial was indispensably needed in order to dispel
the dogmatic slumber which weighed on the human
mind as to this matter. And the denial came.
Pessimism, like Macbeth, has murdered sleep.
Henceforth no man who cultivates philosophy, and
especially no man who cultivates moral philosophy,
can remain ignorant that the question, What is the
worth of life .? demands from him as much serious
consideration as the question. Is man a free or a
necessitated agent } or as the question. What is
the foundation of virtue } Nor can the awakening
stop here ; but from the philosophical consciousness
it must descend to the common consciousness, and
must spread until all intelligent and educated men
are brought to feel that the theme is one on which
they are bound to meditate. In this I see an

Mission of Pessimism. 295

ample providential justification of pessimism. It
has its mission ; and now that it is here, it will not
pass away until that mission is accomplished — which
will not be, so long as atheistical principles are pre-
valent. It can only be overcome through the re-
pression and refutation of atheism. If the present
life be all ; if there be no God and no immortality ;
if nothing have value except what can be empiri-
cally measured and weighed, — it may be possible
to prove that such assertions as that consciousness
is necessarily and essentially pain ; that misery is
always in excess of happiness ; that the course of
things is only from bad to worse, &c., — are exag-
gerations ; but not, I think, to disprove that what
good there is in life is so mingled with sin, suffer-
ing, and delusion, that a wise man may reasonably
and deliberately wish that he had never been born.
More than this pessimism is not logically bound to
maintain ; and this it may successfully maintain
against all who agree with it in the acceptance of
atheistical principles. Of course, this is of itself,
in my opinion, a very good reason for not accept-
ing atheistical principles without the most careful
consideration.

It is impossible for me, within the limits at my
disposal, to describe and examine the various
systems of pessimism separately. I shall therefore
group them together, and endeavour to give a
certain unity and interest to my treatment of them

296 Anti-Thcistic Theories,

by comparing, on a few fundamental points, the
doctrines of Schopenhauer and Hartmann with
that of Buddha. The sole purpose in view, it
must be kept in mind, is to determine whether the
pessimistic conceptions of the world, life, death,
and eternity, are such that we ought to abandon
for them our theism, or such as should lead us to
value it more.

The chief difference between oriental Buddhism
and German pessimism is the obvious one, that
the former is inseparable from faith in a legendary
person, while the latter consists of a series or col-
lection of merely abstract systems. Buddhism
cannot be dissociated from Buddha ; pessimism has
no necessary connection with Schopenhauer, or
Hartmann, or any other person. The founder of
Buddhism was Siddharta, also designated Gotama,
Sakyamuni, and especially Buddha— 2. e., the " en-
lightened." He belonged to the royal race of the
Sakyas, who lived in northern India, in the district
called Oude. Legend mentions Kapilavastu as his
birthplace. The age in which he lived is so far
from determined, that while some fix 543 B.C. as
the year of his death, others prefer 368 B.C. ; and
every new inquirer into the subject seems to come
to a new result. Buddha renounced his princely
rank for the ascetic state ; convinced himself of
the unsatisfactoriness of Brahminism ; taught the
fundamental principles of the creed now associated

Btiddhism viorc than a TJicory. 297

with his name ; and by the persuasiveness of his
speech, the benevolence and attractiveness of his
disposition, and the truth, or apparent truth, of
what he inculcated, gained numerous adherents.
The legends which have been invented about him
form of themselves an enormous literature ; but
what I have just said is, I believe, nearly all that
we certainly know about him. So far as I can
judge, the attempts made to separate between fact
and fiction in the legend of Buddha are almost as
delusive as the attempts which used to be made
to account for the attributes and actions assigned
to Jupiter by the character and deeds of a ruler of
Crete. While Buddha, however, unlike Confucius
or Mohammed, is almost entirely a mythical, and
not an historical personage, the myth of Buddha
is far more important in the system of Buddhism
than the life of Confucius in the system of Con-
fucianism, or of Mohammed in Mohammedanism.
It is a peculiarity which Buddhism alone shares
with Christianity, that it concentrates itself in a
person. It presents an ideal. It embodies its
teaching in an example. It gives an object for
affection. This, there can be no doubt, is one of
the main sources whch has enabled it, in spite of
the withering nature of its dogmas, to spread so
extensively, to root itself so deeply, and to retain
its hold so tenaciously. For the character of the
mythical Buddha, although in many respects wildly

298 Anti-TJieistic TJieorics.

extravagant, is invested with an undeniable moral
grandeur and spiritual impressiveness. It exhibits
in the most striking manner all the gentler vir-
tues. It is simply amazing how far on this side it
transcends the Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and
Epicurean ideals of the sage, and how mean and
superficial even it causes the boasted wisdom of
the classical world to appear. Among its features
are a love without limits, self-sacrifice, justice,
purity. Buddha is represented as freely enduring
the severest afflictions, and freely foregoing for ages
final beatitude in order to work out the salvation
of others. He announced his law as a law of good
news to all. He preached his gospel to the poor
no less than to the rich, to the Soudra as unre-
servedly as to the Brahmin. He took to his heart
all living creatures. He enjoined a charity which
was not limited by race, caste, religion, or anything
else. He counselled all to live a virtuous life,
gentle and prudent, lowly and teachable, resolute
and diligent, unshaken in misfortune, uninfluenced
by partiality, wrath, folly, or fear, faithful in the
discharge of the relative duties, and actively be-
nevolent ; and to all who thus live, whatever be
their station, circumstances, or creed, he promised
victory over this world, and, if not Nirvana, re-
birth in heavenly mansions. Hence, doubtless, it
is that he has gained so many hearts, and drawn
from them, as it were, the confession of the young

German Pcssiinism merely a TJicory. 299

householder Sighala, " It is wonderful, master ! it
is wonderful ! 'Tis as if one should set up again
that which is overthrown, or should reveal that
which is hidden, or should direct the wanderer into
the right path, or hold out a lamp in the darkness,
— so that they that have eyes to see shall see.
Yea, even thus has the blessed Lord made known
the truth to me in many a figure. And I, even T,
do put my trust in thee, and in thy law, and in thy
church. Receive me, Lord, as thy disciple and
true believer from this time forth, as long as life
endures."

The modern German philosophers who accept
the Buddhist theory of existence and hfe as sub-
stantially the true one, to which Christianity and
every other form of theism must give place, do not
ask us, of course, to accept any legend or myth like
that of Buddha. They only seek for assent to the
fundamental doctrines of an essentially Buddhistic
creed. They set forth a modified Buddhism with-
out Buddha, and thus strike off a multitude of
extravagances which European minds could never
be expected to entertain. If they thus, however,
relieve the system from a heavy burden, they also
deprive it of its chief source of strength and vitality.
Buddhism without Buddha — Buddhism reduced to
a merely atheistic and pessimistic theory — would
be a wretched substitute even for Buddhism in its
integrity. It is impossible to imagine what virtues

300 Anti-Theistic Theories.

it could either elicit or sustain. It may spread, but
only in a sceptical and cynical age. It can no
more reasonably be expected to call forth enthu-
siasm for the true, the beautiful, and the good, than
snow and ice can reasonably be expected to kindle
a conflagration and set the world on fire. Its
diffusion through a society can only mean that
vital power is ebbing from it, and the chill of death
creeping over it. Life cannot be sustained on the
doctrine that there is nothing worth living for.
Modern pessimism is merely this doctrine elabor-
ately developed. Buddhism is this also, but it is a
great deal more ; and in what it is more, lies chiefly
the reason why it has exerted in many respects a
beneficial influence.

I might proceed to indicate a number of differ-
ences between Buddhism and German pessimism,
which arise from the ancient and Asiatic origin of
the former and the modern and European origin
of the latter; but as time forbids, and this is not a
philosophical essay, but a lecture with a practical
purpose in view, I hasten to say that Buddhism
and the recent forms of pessimism are substantially
agreed as to the nature and worth of existence.
Buddhism has the merit of possessing a perfectly
definite aim. It professes to show men how they
may be delivered from evil. But what is evil.?
Evil, according to Buddhism, is of the very essence
of existence. Wherever existence is there is evil.

Pessimism and tJie Worth of Existence. 301

It is not man only, but all sentient beings, which
have been made to mourn ; it is not this world only
which is a vale of tears, but all other worlds are
also vain and doomed to misery. Buddha looks
through the whole universe ; at every insect, every
creeping thing, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the
air, and the beast of the field ; at man, in all stages
from birth to death, and in all conditions from the
monarch to the mendicant ; at the generations
which have passed away, and at those which are
to come ; at the worlds above and the worlds
below, and at the innumerable intelligences which
inhabit them, — and he sees that nowhere is there
any true peace or secure happiness. Wherever the
stream of existence flows — yea, even when it is
through the lives of the highest gods — there un-
reality and uncertainty are to be found, and sorrow
is to be feared. Christianity rests on the belief
that God made all things very good, and that the
evil in the world is due to sin, — to the perversity
of the creaturely will. Buddhism, on the contrary,
rests on the belief that all things are very bad ;
that existence is in itself evil ; and that sin is only
one of the necessary consequences of existence.
It does not deny that there are pleasures, but it
maintains that they are so rooted in delusion, and
so surely followed by pains, that a wise man must
desire not to be captivated by them. It admits
that there are many seeming good things in life.

302 Anti-Theistic Theories.

but holds that they are all merely seemhigly good.
It recognises that there are in every order of exist-
ences and actions some relatively good, but not
that any are absolutely good. Many things are
better than other things, but the best of all is not
to be at all. Parinibbana — complete extinction —
is the highest good.

Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and their followers,
endorse the Buddhist view. The former, indeed,
draws a still darker picture. He falls into exag-
gerations from which Buddha and his followers
kept themselves free, and which are not necessar-
ily implied in the pessimistic theory of existence.
The world, according to him, is the worst possible.
Had it been worse it would not have been able to
exist at all. Had man been made only a little
more wretched — had a small amount of deceitful
pleasure not been poured into his cup — he would
have refused to endure life. Things would thus
have been better if they had been worse, seeing
that humanity would then have taken its fate into
its own hands and put an end to itself. Life is ne-
cessarily and hopelessly wretched. To live is to
desire, to desire is to want, to want is to suffer, and
hence to live is to suffer. No man is happy except
when drunk or deluded ; his happiness is only like
that of a beggar who dreams that he is a king.
Nothing is worth the trouble which it costs us.
Wretchedness always outweighs felicity. The his-

Pcssiinisui and tJie Worth of Existence. 303

tory of man is a long, confused, and painful dream.
The notion of any plan or progress in it is errone-
ous. He who has read one chapter of it has read
all. It is a tiresome repetition of horrors and follies
which are ever essentially alike, however they may
differ in accidentals. In a word, Schopenhauer
has put forth all his power as a writer — and he was
a vigorous and striking writer — to depict life as
utterly worthless and wretched.

Von Hartmann is rather more cautious. He
will not say that the world is the worst possible ;
he will not deny even that it may be the best pos-
sible, since we do not know what is possible ; but
he holds decidedly that it is worse than would have
been no world at all. He does not, like Schopen-
hauer, represent pleasure as merely negative and
pain as alone positive, as the very ground and
essence of life, but he fully accepts as true the
well-known words of Sophocles, "Not to have
been born at all is the happiest fate, and the next
best is to die young ; " and those of Byron —

" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen.
Count o'er thy days from anguish free ;
And know, whatever thou hast been,
'Tis something better — not to be."

He believes himself able to prove, by an appeal
to the experience both of individuals and of so-
ciety, that pain preponderates in a high degree over
pleasure, evil over good. He does not deny that

304 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

there is a kind of progress and plan in history,
and yet he regards history as, on the whole, an
irrational process, the successive epochs of which
are so many stages of illusion. In the first of
these stages,— that which is represented by child-
hood in the development of the individual, and
antiquity in the development of the race, — man
hopes to be able to find happiness in this world,
in the pleasures and pursuits and honours of the
earthly life ; but this hope is at length found out
to be deceptive. The soul learns the vanity of the
earthly life and earthly things ; learns that there is
no rest or satisfaction for it in them. With Chris-
tianity a new stage of history, corresponding to
adolescence in the individual, is entered on. Dis-
appointed with this world, man looks for another
and seeks to lay up for himself treasure in heaven.
What he knows he cannot find in the present life
he hopes may await him in a future life. But as
the thoughts of men are widened, and as criticism,
science, and speculation spread, that hope likewise
is seen to have no rational warrant, and the indi-
vidual is forced to acknowledge that he has no-
thing worth living for either in the present or the
future. Hope, however, dies hard in the human
breast Hence when men no longer dare to look
for anything for themselves as individuals, they
still believe in a collective progress of their race.
This is their hope in the age In which we live, —

Pessimism and tJie Worth of Existence. 305

the manhood of humanity, the third stage of the
world's history ; but it also is an illusion. Wealth
may be increased, mechanical inventions multi-
plied, and culture more widely diffused, but mor-
ality varies little, and the development of intellect
diminishes happiness. The political changes which
socialists demand will inevitably be realised, but
those who suppose that men will be any the better
when these changes have been effected will cer-
tainly be disappointed. The progress of history is
not the growth of any positive good in history, but
the growth of man's consciousness of the nothing-
ness and vanity of human life.

The mere statement of views like those just in-
dicated should be sufficient to render the believer
in a God of wisdom and of love profoundly grate-
ful that his faith saves him from assenting to dog-
mas so false and so terrible. It is only through
the possession of a well - grounded faith in the
perfections of God that we can be warranted in
entertaining a cheerful view of the destinies of
mankind. To be "without God" is, in the esti-
mate of reason, equivalent to being " without hope
in the world." This does not imply, however, that
grave exaggerations may not be detected in the
reasonings and calculations on which Schopen-
hauer and Hartmann have based their conclusions.
On the contrary, the most manifest exaggerations
abound. The pessimists are plainly not impartial

U

3o6 Anti-Theistic TheoiHes,

seekers after truth, but the zealous pleaders of a
special cause ; they are good advocates and bad
judges ; they make more than is warranted of
whatever seems to be in favour of the view which
they have espoused, and they depreciate or distort
whatever appears to be inconsistent with it.

The main reason which Schopenhauer alleges
in proof of the essential wretchedness of life is a
badly executed psychological analysis — one viti-
ated by a metaphysical hypothesis. The principle
that pleasure is merely negative, and that pain
alone is positive, is derived by him from the more
general principle that all is will — that the essence
of all things is an effort, a striving, identical with
that which, when manifested in ourselves under the
light of consciousness, is called will. But all effort,
he holds, springs from want, which is pain so long
as unsatisfied, and which is no sooner satisfied than
a new want, a new p*in, is engendered. Willing is
essentially suffering, and therefore life as essentially
willing is essentially suffering. The more elevated
the being, the fuller the life, the more the suffer-
ing. The lowest animals suffer least. The man
of genius is of all men the most miserable. Pleas-
ures are only the momentary alleviations of pain;
happiness is but an evanescent illusion.

There is manifest error and morbid exaggera-
tion in such a view as this. Life implies desire,
and desire in a derivative being implies want, but

Pessiviism and tJie WortJi of Existence. 307

if the want is always supplied there need be little
or no suffering-. The prospect of enjoyment, not
the experience of suffering, may be, and in many
cases is, the stimulus to activity. Where feelings
of unrest and disquiet are the causes or occasions
of exertion, there may be in the exertion and in
the result attained by it far more pleasure than
pain. It is pleasure which springs from the fulfil-
ment of the natural conditions of life ; it is pain
which flows from their non-fulfilment ; and hence,
as a general rule, happiness doubtless preponder-
ates over misery in the animal world. All that
can be legitimately inferred from the mere exist-
ence of want, is that the being which is conscious
of want is a dependent being. Pain is not inhe-
rent in want, but is the consequence of want unsup-
plied. A consciousness of want is the root of all
spiritual strength and perfection. The life of com-
plete human blessedness is a life which is realised
not to be inherent in self, but to flow from an in-
finite source for the continuous supply of every
want. Want easily passes into pain, but in itself
it is simply an expression of finiteness, of limita-
tion. All sufferings which are needed to bring
men to a sense of their wants are amply justified,
because what they lead to is not evil, but a some-
thing purely good, if there be an adequate and
appropriate supply of these wants.

Then the stages of illusion described by Hart-

308 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

mann are mainly illusions of his own. Even in
antiquity, — in the Greco- Roman world, — it was
only the foolish who hoped to find happiness in
the pleasures and pursuits and honours of earthly
life ; and the foolish hope so still. The majority
of men, and especially of thoughtful men, in Greece
and Rome, never cherished any illusion of the kind.
It is possible for men, even in the savage state, to
see the stupidity of such a hope ; while atheist
philosophers, even in the nineteenth century, are
apt to believe in its reasonableness, because they
have no other hope. On the other hand, that hope
in a future life is an illusion — that wise men have
discovered it to be without solid foundation, — is
an assertion which atheists have made ever since
atheism existed, but which is as unproved at pres-
ent as on the first day it was uttered. As to faith
in human progress, it is obviously not only recon-
cilable with faith in God and immortality, but
more dependent on it than on anything else.
Faith in God is the chief support and source of
faith in progess. If the former be rejected the
latter will not long be retained. In a word, Von
Hartmann's conception of the course of history
is very superficial and erroneous — one devised to
serve the requirements of his general theory of
existence, with extremely little regard to the really
relevant facts.

It is easy to show that Hartmann has under-

Pcssiniisin and tJic Worth of Existence. 309

valued what arc generally regarded as the advan-
tages of life, and exaggerated what seem to be its
disadvantages. Yet it is not easy, or even pos-
sible, satisfactorily to refute his fundamental thesis
by data drawn entirely from the pleasures and
pains of common experience in the present life.
Experience is a very ambiguous term. It may
mean merely our perceptions and sensations ; it
may mean these and all other states of immediate
consciousness ; it may be so widened as to include,
besides, all that can be established by induction ;
and it may signify all that we perceive, feel, and
can prove in any valid way. In its narrower sig-
nifications it is an inadequate basis on which to
pronounce recent general judgments ; if its third
application is legitimate, so is its fourth ; and in
that its widest meaning, experience is coextensive
with knowledge, in which case God and a future
life will be contended to be objects of experience.
Then the present life is extremely uncertain and
variable, both as regards quantity and quality. It
may be a thing of mere moments or of many
years, and may have the most diverse sorts of
fortunes. What is the worth of a life of a few
hours of suffering, or of a few years of sickliness
and disease ? There are tens and hundreds of
thousands of such lives. A man may live long
in health and prosperity, but there may be be-
fore him a few years of agony and wretchedness.

310 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories.

When he is dead, how will you weign the maii}^
years of moderate pleasure which he has enjoyed
against the few years of severe pain which he
has suffered, so as to decide which scale has been
the heavier ? Can you, judging by mere pleasures
and pains, reasonably pronounce any man happy
before he is dead ? Further, what the pessimist
means by the present life is only a fragment of
the present life of religious men. The world of
duty and of spiritual communion is as real to
them now as the world of sense. The pains and
pleasures which the atheist regards as the sole and
ultimate elements of calculation, seem to them
facts which can only be judged of aright when
viewed in relation to facts of greater importance.
How can we estimate the worth of life by con-
sidering exclusively the mere fragment of a frag-
ment of it 1 If there be a moral life as well as a
physical life — if the m.oral life be higher than the
physical life instead of subordinate to it — if there
be a God — and if immortality be a reality, — the
reasoning of the pessimist is, indeed, plainly er-
roneous, but not more so than the endeavour to
refute it by arguing on the supposition that there
is no independent moral life, no God, and no
eternal state of being. The pessimist view of
existence can only be met by a religious view of
existence.

Mr Sully, the author of a very able work on

il/r Sully on the Pessimistic Vieiu of Existence. 3 1 1

the subject under consideration, argues for the
contrary opinion. He urges as his first reason
that " it is by no means agreed among men that
experience does guarantee the truth either of a
future life or of the existence of a benevolent
Creator," — that "many persons very distinctly
reject the evidences of natural theology." To
this objection it is a sufficient reply that the ques-
tion is not as to what is agreed among men, but
as to what is true. Far more persons very dis-
tinctly reject the philosophical principles assumed
in Mr Sully's argumentation than the belief in God
and a future life. His second and principal reason
is, that " the worth of human life, so far from being
made dependent on theological conceptions, is
itself one of the facts on which the propositions
of theology have to establish themselves, or to
which at least they have to accommodate them-
selves ; " that " the truth of the existence of a
benevolent Creator is directly affected by the
pessimist reading of human life ;" and that "the
belief in a future life must be affected so far as
the assurance of a wise and good God on which
it reposes is affected." It is an argument which
proves just the opposite of what it is supposed by
Mr Sully to do. Certainly, if the pessimist read-
ing of life be correct the theistic view of it must
be erroneous. Does it follow that theism ought
to take no account of pessimism, and of what it

312 Anti-TJieistic TJieo7'ics.

alleges to be facts which substantiate its account
of the worth of life ? Manifestly not. The plain
duty of the theist is just the reverse; it is to ex-
amine all the facts brought forward by pessimism,
to compare them with all the other facts on which
itself rests, and to show that the true reading of
human life, when it is surveyed in a sufficiently
comprehensive way, is not pessimist but theistic.
This is what theism does. I know of no facts
brought forward by Schopenhauer or Hartmann
which I have not taken into consideration in my
argumentation for theism when estimating the
objections which may be urged to the Divine
wisdom, benevolence, and justice. I allow more
weight even to these facts than Mr Sully seems
inclined to do. Why is pessimism to be discussed
in a way which would be utterly unreasonable in
regard to theism } If theism is true, pessimism is
false ; if what theism alleges in its support are
real facts, properly interpreted and derived from
a far wider field of existence and knowledge than
are those on which pessimism relies, pessimism
must be an erroneous reading of life, necessarily
resulting from the attempt to explain a text with-
out regard to its context. How then can it be
reasonable either for an advocate or critic of it
to say. Let us have nothing to do with theism or
theology .-^ let us concern ourselves with nothing
but the question, Is there an overplus of pleasure

Mr- Sully on ihe Pcssiuiistic View of Existence. 313

or pain in life ? The question as to the worth
of Hfe is one which cannot be so narrowed and
isolated. It is essentially a question which be-
longs to the philosophy of final causes. The
worth of life cannot be weighed in the false bal-
ances of the so-called Science of Hedonics.

What solution, we naturally ask, does Mr Sully
give to the problem raised by pessimism, after
having consented to deal with it in the narrow and
partial manner which has been specified } This :
there are in the world certain permanent conditions
of happiness, such as wealth, family connections,
agreeable occupations, self-culture, a due adjust-
ment of the aims of life, the voluntary direction
of our attention to what is pleasing rather than
to what is painful, and the furtherance of others'
interests so far as they are involved in the pursuit
of our own happiness ; if we thoughtfully and
carefully seek satisfaction through the attainment
of these things, we shall secure a clear surplus of
enjoyment over misery ; and we may comfort our-
selves with the hope that the world is growing a
more and more desirable place in which to live.
It is an answer which one can conceive might
become popular among the unreflecting members
of English middle-class society, but which is not
likely to be widely accepted by more competent
judges. Surely experience has proved that happi-
ness is not to be found in v/ealth, family connec-

314 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

tions, agreeable occupations, and the like. Surely
it is certain that millions cannot gain more than
daily bread for themselves and their families, even
in the most disagreeable occupations. The self-
culture which aims merely at happiness cannot
fail to miss its aim, and will probably be as pro-
ductive of evil as of good. To attend to what is
pleasing rather than to what is painful is, as a
general rule, a most immoral and mischievous
maxim. We are all far too much inclined to get
out of the way of sorrow ; and what we really need
to be told is, attend rather to what is painful than
to what is pleasing. To further others' interests in
the pursuit of our own happiness is a playing at
virtue v/hich can only lead the conscience to a con-
sciousness of hypocrisy. We have no experience
that the world will grow happier. Experience is
only of the present and the past, not of the future ;
and the present and past afford merely data for
vague conjectures as to whether happiness will
increase or diminish in the future. There is, it
seems to me, no probability that the world will
grow a more and more desirable place to live in,
if faith in God and the hope of immortality are
gradually to decay until they ultimately die out
of the human consciousness.

Mr Sully acknowledges that his answer is not
one which will satisfy " the greed of human nature."
He is quite right there. Yet that greed is a most

Mr Sully on tJie Pessimistic Viczv of Existence. 3 1 5

noteworthy fact of experience, and no answer which
does not satisfy it is a solution of the problem as
to the worth of life. There is nothing so insati-
able as the human soul, and there is nothing which
receives from this w^orld so little satisfaction. There
is a vast disproportion between the demands of the
heart and the realities of experience. The soul is
so ambitious, and the world is so easily exhausted,
that they do not seem to have been made for each
other. Our hearts are far too large for any worldly I
life ; the worldly life could only satisfy for smaller [
hearts. But the heart can ill bear the perpetual
contradiction between itself and life ; to be always
asking, and never receiving ; to be incessantly
agitated and incessantly disappointed. It longs
for rest — for peace. And it has a choice between
two ways which both lead to rest, but to rest of
very different kinds. It may take the broad and
beaten path which lies in lowering the heart to
the level of w^orldly life ; in compressing it until it
is small enough ; in restricting its desires to what
experience shows earth \vill afford ; in learning to
ask little and to expect little. This is the way
in which many seek and find rest ; but it is the
infallible mark of a low and vulgar philosophy to
recommend or sanction a procedure which leads
through the degradation of the whole nature to
the rest of spiritual death. True wisdom counsels
us to try the other, although narrower and more

3i6 Anti-Tlicistic Theories.

arduous path ; to seek an experience as elevated
and rich as our highest instincts crave for ; to be
content only with a good which will really satisfy
the greed of the heart ; to make the rest not of
stifled but of satisfied desire — not of death, but of
life — our goal.

Pessimism, we are now prepared to expect, must
rest on the most defective notion of God, or rather
must be virtually without God, since not otherwise
could it have taken so appalling a view of things.

The dogma which has been mentioned as an
essential article of the creed of Sakyamuni, — the
dogma that existence is inherently evil, — that
existence, even in the highest intelligences of the
celestial worlds, is evil, — leaves no room for any
true belief In God. If existence be in every form
and aspect evil, it cannot need Divine intelligence
and goodness to account for existence ; and if
existence does not require a God to explain it,
non-existence may explain itself While, there-
fore, Buddhism readily embraces the gods of the
various countries which it has overrun, it acknow-
ledges no Supreme Creative and Governing Reason.
It assumes that there is an eternal succession of
worlds, and that human souls revolve perpetually
in the urn of fate, disappearing and reappearing
and passing through countless forms from a clod
of earth to a god; but it does not ask how the
series of worlds began, or Vv'hence souls originally

Pessimism and A tJicism.

317

came. Like the positivism and agnosticism of
modern Europe, it is content to regard the universe
as a chain of secondary events, or a web of phe-
nomena and relations, and treats all inquiries after
the origin of things as vain and useless. While it
knows of no First Cause, however, it affirms the
existence of a mysterious law of causality condi-
tioning the uninterrupted succession of causes and
effects; and this law, which is what is called Karma,
is of a moral as well as a physical nature. What
determines the future is the aggregate result of
past actions. The condition of each one to-day
depends not only on what he has done since he
was born, but equally on what he did myriads
of years ago. There is thus, according to Bud-
dhism, a sort of moral government in the universe,
although there is no Moral Governor; at least,
there is a very comprehensive and rigid moral
fatalism. When a world is destroyed, as in the
cycles of change every world 'must often be, and
when not an atom of matter in it, or a soul which
belongs to it, is left, good and bad works remain,
with their eternal consequences, and give rise to a
world and souls again.

Buddha is not the First Cause, not a God, not a
God-man, but a man-God. The notion that man
can attain by his own exertions divine attributes
— can by prayers and sacrifices, and mental and
bodily discipline, become a god, even in spite of

3iS Auti-Theistic Theories.

the opposition of the gods — is a very widely spread
one in naturahstic and pantheistic rehgions. It
was distinctly recognised in Brahminism ; and from
Brahminism Buddhism borrowed it, or, we may
even say, Buddhism was based on this belief of
Brahminism. Buddha is a man-God : a man who
has risen to be higher than the highest of gods,
because he resolved to do so, and through a course
of millions of years, and hundreds of births and
deaths, ever kept steadily before him the purpose
that he would find the way by which the souls of
men might escape from the miseries of their inces-
sant wanderings from existence to existence.

When we turn from Buddha to Schopenhauer,
the transition as regards the fundamental point
before our attention at present is not very great
Schopenhauer could not endure theism. The way
in which he tried to account for the universe with-
out referring to God was as follows : The world of
experience, he argues, is but our representation ; or,
in other words, the objects of our knowledge are
the products of our intellects. There is no world
of such objects existing outside of us, and corre-
sponding to our representations. The known world
is produced by the minds which know it, and has
no existence except in these minds. It is a mere
phenomenon of consciousness ; it is a delusion — a
dream. But beneath this unreal world there is — so
Schopenhauer argued — a real one, which is con-

Pessimism and AtJicism. 319

stituted by what he calls ivilL This will is said to
realise itself in the various physical forces, and in
the activities of vegetable and animal life, as well
as in what are commonly termed wills. It is not
accompanied or guided by intellect, but it precedes
and creates intellect. This blind will — which is the
will of no one — produces and pervades the whole
world. It is the one reality from which are re-
flected all appearances. What Karma is in the
creed of Buddha, Will is in the creed of Schopen-
hauer. It is his substitute for God. But if we ask,
How is its existence to be known } he cannot tell
us ; and if he could, the telling us would be of no
use, since, on his own showing, knowledge is delu-
sion. If we ask him, What is this will which you
say is alone real, the true and ultimate explanation
of the universe } he has to reply, — " There is no
possible answer to that question ; for in so far as a
thing is known, it is not real, but only a phenome-
non." Thus what he says just amounts to this :
"All that we know is delusion; and although what
I call will is real, it is only real in so far as I know
nothing about it." Such is the theory which he
puts forth as much more profound, and self-con-
sistent, and lucid than atheism.

Von Hartmann attempts to explain the universe
by what he designates the Unconscious. He re-
gards the Unconscious as comprehensive of an
omnipotent will and an omniscient intelligence.

320 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

He represents both the primal will and the primal
intelligence as unconscious ; but as this is a mere
negative predicate, and as he shows us neither how
nor why they are united, he is manifestly from
the outset, with all his pretensions to monism, an
irrational dualist. The unconscious, he argues,
creates and constitutes matter, which, according
to his view, is only an arrangement of atomic forces
that are themselves unconscious volitions which
have for objects unconscious representations or
ideas. It likewise originates and presides over the
evolution of organisation and life, so that its opera-
tions may be traced in all biological and psycho-
logical processes, and in the general course of his-
tory. It attains to consciousness in man through
the separation of intelligence from will. And the
growth of intelligence consists in ever more clearly
recognising the folly of the work of the will.

I do not need to occupy time in criticising fan-
cies so arbitrary and self- contradictory as those
which have just been described. The latest of
them is as unreasonable as the earliest. Buddha's
Karma or impersonal moral fate is in no respect a
less satisfactory explanation of things than either
Schopenhauer's will or Hartmann's unconscious-
ness. In one respect it is decidedly preferable ;
it is moral, it is not mere force. Karma, Will, the
Unconscious, — all three, conceived of as substitutes
for God, are pure myths. That the two last should

Pcssimisvi and A theism. 3 2 1

have originated and found acceptance in a highly
educated country, and in a scientific age, shows
that something more is required than education
and science to protect us from superstitions as (
gross as any that haunted the medieval mind.

Neither Schopenhauer nor Hartmann has ven-
tured to adopt the cardinal doctrine of Asiatic Bud-
dhism, the dogma of the man-God, of the develop-
ment of man into God ; but even this extravagant
and hideous tenet has found a European advocate
in M. Renan. He begins the book intitled * Dia-
logues et Fragments Philosophiques/ published in
1876, by maintaining that two things are certain,
— first, that neither nature nor history offers the
least trace of the intervention of a will higher than
the human, or, in other words, not the least trace
of the existence or action of a God ; and second,
that, notwithstanding this, the world has an end
and labours at a vast and mysterious work. He
next proceeds to argue that it is probable that the
work and end of the world are the evolution and
organisation of God by reason. Thus, although
there was no God at the beginning of the world,
there will be one in process of time. . God did not
create the world, but the .world is labouring to
bring forth God. It is truly wonderful how far
atheism and evolution together may carry the
human imagination.

I remark, in the next place, that the systems
X

322 Anti-TJieisiic TJieories.

under consideration are very similar in the views
which they present as to the way in which we are
overpowered by evil. Buddhism although essen-
tially atheistical, professes to be a religion which
discloses salvation. It represents the attainment
of salvation as dependent on a knowledge of the
causes which account for existence. Existence is
evil. The causes of existence are, therefore, the
causes of evil. The immediate cause of existence
is attachment. Attachment — a certain cleaving to
existence — is what keeps us bound down to it ;
enslaved under the law of transmigration. Attach-
ment, the cause of existence, is itself an effect, the
cause of which is desire, the pursuit of what pleases,
and aversion to what is disagreeable. Desire is, in
its turn, the effect of sensation, through which we
become aware of the qualities of things, and so
are moved to seek or avoid them. Sensation is
still no more than an effect. Its cause is contact ;
not necessarily physical contact, but contact either
through the external senses or the internal sense.
Contact is therefore, in its turn, consequent upon
the six seats or centres of sensation, five of which
are external, and one internal, this last comprehend-
ing all that we call sentiments, — all states of feeling
which are not dependent upon any of our bodily
organs, but arise from mental causes. The seats
of sensation are, in like manner, referred to form,
form to consciousness, consciousness to conception,

Pcssiinisni and the Cause of Evil. 323

and conception to ignorance. Ignorance is the
ultimate cause of this chain of twelve alternate
causes and effects. It is described as consisting
essentially in regarding what is evanescent as per-
manent, what is illusion as reality, or, in other
words, in supposing anything that exists to be
anything else than a mockery and an evil.

The theory of Schopenhauer is much the same.
All phenomenal existence, according to him, is
but a dream, and all individuality but a delusion.
Life, though grounded in the essence of things and
a result of necessity, is a mere vanity. It has its
root in the will to live ; it is a cleaving to exist-
ence, a striving after satisfaction ; but striving
springs from desire, desire from want, want from
suffering, and all from delusion or ignorance.
Were it not for ignorance of the worthlessness of
life, there would be no will to live; there would
be no life.

The teaching of Von Hartmann is at this point
in agreement with that of Schopenhauer. It is to
the working of the irrational will of the Uncon-
scious that he ascribes alike the origin of .existence
and of evil. That will has broken away from the
primitive harmony of the Unconscious, and nature
and life are the deplorable consequences. Reason
— unconscious reason — follows after to undo as far
as possible the evil which will has produced, and to
convince it of the mischief which it has caused, and

324 Anti-Theistic Theories.

is causing ; but before it succeeds, all history must
be traversed, all delusions experienced, all follies
committed. The new Buddhism is, in this connec-
tion, so far as I can see, neither more profound nor
more reasonable than the old.

We pass on to consider what pessimism has to
teach concerning the chief end or highest good of
human life. In the Buddhism of Buddha the
series of causes accounting for the continued flow
of existence or evil is regarded as of extreme im-
portance. The nature of the salvation must corre-
spond to the nature of the evil, and the method
in which the salvation is to be attained must cor-
respond to the causes of what makes it necessary.
Hence it is perfectly natural that the discovery of
the order and connection of the causes enumerated
should seem to the Buddhist to have solved the
enigma, to have dispelled the mystery, of the uni-
verse. The nature of the evil must, as I have said,
determine the nature of the salvation. Now the
evil is existence. It is existence in itself — exist-
ence in every form and aspect it can assume. This
would lead us to infer that the salvation must be
the opposite of existence, — must be non-existence,
annihilation, complete extinction. And the sur-
mise is too true. The reward which Buddhism
holds forth to its votaries as the highest attainable,
even by a Buddha, is perfect Nirvana — nothing-
ness, the absolute void, the state in which nothing

Pes sin lis in and the Chief Good.

6-D

remains of that which constitutes existence, the
entire absence of sensation and self-consciousness.
It is difficult to credit that men should have been
able to form such a view of the chief good ; and
the European students of Buddhism have tried as
much as they could to resist the conclusion that
this was what it taught, but they have found it vain
to resist the evidence any longer. With the ex-
ception, perhaps, of Max Miiller, all the leading
authorities on Buddhism are agreed that what it
points to as the ultimate goal of a pious life is not
merely a state of repose, of non-agitation, or a state
of unconsciousness, as in sleep, but extinction, an-
nihilation, nonentity. This conclusion cannot be
affected by any discussion as to the meaning and
application of the celebrated word Nirvana. It
may be held as proved that the Nirvana on which
the Buddhists lavish such superlative praises is, in
their oldest writings almost always, and in their
later writings very often, not annihilation, but a
state of unruffled calm, of blissful freedom from
anxiety, desire, sorrow, and sin. This, I think, has
been nearly made out by Max Miiller and Childers.
But Nirvana is itself a state with stages. It may
be complete or incomplete. He who enters into it
is not at the end of his life. He is only sure that
he will arrive there; that he will not be reborn.
What is the very end ? What is Parinirvana .'*
There seems to be no doubt that the only answer

326 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

is — eternal and absolute nothingness. Were it
otherwise, Buddhism would stand charged with the
most manifest inconsistency. It knows no absolute
god, no world-soul, no being into which the perfect
man could enter or be absorbed ; for every god,
every soul, every being, is illusion and vanity. It
distinctly condemns as a heresy the notion that man
has any true self, any real individuality, or is more
than a mere temporary aggregate of quahties.
Buddhism, after having pronounced a sentence of
condemnation against all existence, was compelled
by force of logic to confound perfected salvation
with complete extinction.

As to this point, however, we must be on our
guard against certain exaggerations which are cur-
rent. Some authors write as if the terrible nega-
tion in which Buddhism ends were one of the chief
sources of its strength — as if the void abyss to
which it points were full of attractions to the ori-
ental mind — as if hundreds of millions of human
beings were so strangely constituted as to hunger
after absolute vacuity and thirst for eternal death.
There are no grounds for such a view. What the
Buddhist laity hope for from obedience to the pre-
cepts of their faith is to be born again in some
higher and purer state of being than that through
which they are at present passing. The Nirvana
which is eulogised in the Buddhist Scriptures, and
after which the Buddhist saints are represented as

Pessimism and the Chief Good. 327

striving, is not the cessation of existence, but ces-
sation from passion and change. All Buddhist
thinkers are not orthodox and logical ; and doubt-
less many of them are not nihilists. In the pop-
ular legends there are stories of Buddhas who have
come back from Nirvana ; and although this is in
manifest contradiction to the Buddhist creed as a
whole, it is a circumstance which ought to be noted,
as showing that there is a popular Buddhism which
is unconsciously in contradiction to Buddhism as
a theory. " In China," we are told by Professor
Martin of Pekin, "the Nirvana was found to be
too subtle an idea for popular contemplation ; and
in order to furnish the people with a more attrac-
tive object of worship, the Buddhists brought for-
ward a goddess of mercy, whose highest merit was,
that having reached the verge of Nirvana, she
declined to enter, preferring to remain where she
could hear the cries and succour the calamities of
those who were struggling with the manifold evils
of a world of change." The human heart, we may
be assured, is essentially the same all the world
over.

The pessimist philosophers of Germany are very
orthodox Buddhists, so far as regards the belief^
that annihilation is our being's end and aim.
According to Schopenhauer, life will gradually be
seen to be what it really is — an empty and illusive
form. As this knowledge grows, the will to live

328 Anti-Theistic TJieories.

must gradually cease. Men will refuse to preserve
themselves or propagate their species, and will
welcome death as their highest good. Thus at
length individuality, personal existence, will pass
completely away, and life will be cancelled in
the nothingness of eternity. The blunders of the
creative power will thus be corrected and effaced.
But Schopenhauer fails to give us any assurance
that when this has been accomplished that power
will not begin again to blunder as foolishly and
mischievously as before. All that he seems sure
of is that it cannot do any worse than it has done.
His hope that it may do nothing at all is far from
consistent with his general opinion of its character.
So irrational an agent cannot be expected to act
rationally. Von Hartmann maintains that after
men have passed from deception to deception they
will at length recognise the utter vanity of exist-
ence, sigh after eternal extinction, and seek and
find it in a collective and concerted act of self-
destruction. Reason, he teaches us, will ultimately
convince the will that it is better for it not to be,
and induce it to annihilate itself. He does not
inform us, however, in what way it is possible for
the universal will to annihilate itself Is there any
dynamite, asks Dr Ebrard, not irrelevantly, which
will serve the purpose.? Herr von Hartmann
ought to know. He seems to suppose that the
human race by annihilating itself can annihilate

Pessimism and the Chief Good. 329

the power which originated the universe ; but can
he seriously beUeve so manifest an absurdity ?

Herr Bahnsen stands alone among pessimists
in distinctly denying that even the poor hope of
annihilation is legitimate. This vigorous thinker
is the most thorough and uncompromising of all
the advocates of pessimism. He maintains that
the world and life are not only essentially irra-
tional and wretched, but will be eternally so. He
holds that his fellow-pessimists have no right to
promise that the agony of creation will ever ter-
minate. If his view be correct, the words which
Dante read over the gate of hell might be inscribed
on the portals of the universe —

"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate."

That his view is not correct cannot, I believe, be
proved on pessimistic principles. That evil will
have an end, if existence is essentially evil, may
be believed on the word of Buddha or Schopen-
hauer or Hartmann, but reason for believing it
there can be none. The hope of the extinction
of evil in a world essentially evil is an unreason-
able hope, and can only be based on blind faith.
But notwithstanding this, the latest Buddhists, with
the one exception mentioned, like the earliest —
those who live on the banks of the Spree and the
I\Iain, like those who live beside the Meinam and
the Cambodia — look to " nothingness as an asylum

330 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

from which there is no return, and in which the
soul has no longer anything to fear, nor anything
to expect."

In conclusion, we would ask. What is the path
which pessimism advises us to pursue in order to
attain the goal which it sets before us ? How are
we to reach what it represents as our ultimate
destination ?

Buddhism finds an answer implied in its doc-
trine of the series of causes of existence. To
break the chain of causes is what" is required.
This can only be done through discovering the
worthlessness of existence, and ceasing from all
attachment, all sensuous cleaving, to it in any
form. To secure detachment from life, a code of
morality is the first thing enjoined. Buddhism is
predominantly an ethical doctrine. And it is as
such that It is chiefly entitled to praise. It does
not fall within the scope of this lecture to dwell
on the merits of its moral teaching, but I gladly
recognise that they are very great, although not
unaccompanied and uncounteracted by serious de-
fects. No other heathen system is pervaded by
so elevated and pure an ethical spirit. It shows
the most wonderful appreciation of the beauties of
such virtues as meekness, patience, forgiveness of
injuries, compassion, and charity. It is inspired,
like Christianity, with a sense of the glory of self-
sacrifice. At first sight it almost seems as if the

Pessimism and tJic Way to the Chief Good. 331

morality which it preached were essentially evan-
gelical. Yet this is by no means the case. For,
as has been justly said, "if our earliest impres-
sion is the closeness of the parallel between the
morality of Buddhism and the morality of the
Cross, our second impression is the wideness of
their contrast. In Christianity, self-sacrifice is
divine ; in Buddhism, it is purely human, and pro-
posed as the substitute for a religion. In Chris-
tianity, self-sacrifice contemplates the amelioration
of the world; in Buddhism, it contemplates getting
out of the world. In Christianity, self-sacrifice is
proclaimed to be the source of the highest ulti-
mate joy; in Buddhism, it is offered as a means
of suicide. . . . The morality of Buddhism, beau-
tiful as it is in its outward precepts, is still the
product of a root of bitterness, and owes its exist-
ence to the despair of all rest." ^ Then morality
alone cannot lead, according to Buddhism, to Nir-
vana. It is a help towards freeing the soul from
the thraldom of the causes of existence, but it is
no more than a help. The direct path to Nirvana
is meditation and asceticism. No one who does
not traverse this path — no one who does not
become a self- mortifying monk or recluse — can
hope for more from his obedience to the moral
law of Buddhism than to escape the hells and

^ Matheson — 'Growth of the Spirit of Christianity,' vol. i, pp.
28, 29.

332 Ajiti-Theistic Tkeoi^ies.

to transmigrate into something better than he has
been.

In entire accordance with this teaching, Schopen-
hauer maintains that the will to hve must be rooted
out by fasting, by voluntary poverty, by meek sub-
mission to injury, by absolute chastity, and, in a
word, by the various exercises of asceticism. His
practice did not in the least correspond to this
part of his theory, as he was particularly careful
of his life, health, and money, had a most exclu-
sive and selfish regard to his own comfort, and was
decidedly the reverse of either meek or patient.
But his ethical creed was perfectly orthodox in the
Buddhistic sense, although his life was heretical.
Von Hartmann is much less orthodox even in
creed. He admits that it is hopeless to expect
men to mortify the flesh and destroy life by ascetic
practices, and would have his followers live just as
other people do, in the trust that the world, owing
to the delusions and disenchantments of history,
will gradually, without individuals taking any care
about the matter, work out its own salvation — that
is, its c vvn destruction. In the East, multitudes
of men have earnestly striven to act on their pes-
simism. In the West, no one has as yet, so far as
I am aware, seriously tried to do so.

The theory which we have been considering
answers successfully ((^w, if any, of the demands
of the reason, the conscience, or the heart. It re-

Pessimism and the Gospel. 333

gards the world as irrational, and so, of course,
does not explain it. It la}-s good and evil under
the same condemnation. It seeks to empty the
soul of the susceptibilities which it cannot satisfy,
and to extirpate the desires which it cannot regu-
late. It tends to arrest all social progress. The
rest which it promises is that of the grave. We
ought, I think, to carry away from the contempla-
tion of it a deepened gratitude to God for the gift
of that Gospel which has shown us the true cause
of the world's misery and the true way of salvation
That even in our own day, and in Christian lands,
the Gospel should by some have been deliberately
rejected in the name of science and philosophy,
and the Buddhist theory reproduced as a substi-
tute for it, only shows in a glaring and terrible
light that what is esteemed the most modern
wisdom may be very ancient folly.^

* See Appendix XXXIII.

334 Anti-Theistic Theories.

LECTURE IX.

HISTORY OF PANTHEISM.

Pantheism is a word of very wide and very vague
import. It has been used to designate an immense
variety of systems which have prevailed in the
East and the West in ancient and modern times.
It is, in fact, a word so vague that few thinkers
have defined it to their own satisfaction. There is
no general agreement as to its meaning, and it has
been applied to all sorts of doctrines, the worst and
the best. It has been so understood as to include
the lowest atheism and the highest theism — the
materialism of Holbach and Biichner, and the
spiritualism of St Paul and St John. There is a
materialistic pantheism which cannot be rigidly
separated from other materialism, and there has
been much talk of late of a Christian pantheism
which can only be distinguished from Christian
theism if theism be identified, or rather confounded,
with deism. The term pantheism ought, of course,

Nature of PantJieisni. 335

to be so understood, if possible, as to be altogether
inapplicable to either atheistic or theistic systems ;
but we must remember that systems of thought,
and especially systems of religion, are seldom, if
ever, perfectly homogeneous and self- consistent.
It is seldom, if ever, possible to refer them to
a class with absolute accuracy, or to find that a
definition exactly suits them. Even in regard to
materialism, I had to remark that the only kind
of system of which its history supplies no record
is one which would answer truly to the name of
materialism. In the same way there is probably
no pure pantheism. The systems designated
pantheistic are only more or less so ; they contain
likewise, in almost every instance, some atheistic,
polytheistic, or theistic elements. It would be
therefore unfair to judge any system solely and
rigidly by a definition of pantheism. Each pan-
theistic system must be judged of in itself and as a
whole in order to be impartially estimated. Why
each system has come to be what it is, and wh)-
one system differs from another, are questions
which the history of religious philosophy professes
to answer, and which it is continually learning to
answer in a more thorough and satisfactory manner,
while the characteristic at once common to all the
systems, and distinctive of them, is still not very
clearly or exactly determined.

What is pantheism } The following is as definite

33^ Anti-T]ieistic Theories.

a general answer as I can give. Pantheism is the
theory which regards all finite things as merely
aspects, modifications, or parts of one eternal and
self-existent being; which views all material objects,
and all particular minds, as necessarily derived
from a single infinite substance. The one absolute
substance — the one all -comprehensive being — it
calls God. Thus God, according to it, is all that
is ; and nothing is which is not essentially included
in, or v/hich has not been necessarily evolved out
of, God. It may conceive of the one substance in
many and most dissimilar ways, but it is only pan-
theism on condition of conceiving of it as one.
For example, there can only be materialistic pan-
theism where there is believed to be materialistic
monism. Its adherents are those who regard mat-
ter as ultimately not an aggregate of atoms but a
unity, — who are so devoid of perspicacity as not to
see that materialism and monism are in reality
contradictory conceptions. Pantheism may also
represent the derivation of the multiplicity of phen-
omena from the unity of substance as taking place
in many very different ways, but it cannot be truly
pantheism unless it represent it as a necessary
derivation. It must regard it not as a freely willed
production, but as an eternal process which could
not have been other than what it has been. In
order that there may be pantheism, monism and
determinism must be combined. It is only then

Nature of Pant Jieisvi. 337

that the All of Nature is believed to be coexten-
sive with God — only then that the Divine Being
is supposed to be fully or exhaustively expressed
in the Divine manifestations.

According to the view I have just stated, no
system which does not include determinism and
exclude freedom is truly pantheistic. I refuse to
have any controversy with certain so-called forms
of pantheism which I do not regard as properly pan-
theistic, and which are certainly not anti-theistic.
If matter could be resolved into force, and force
could be reasonably inferred to be a phase or
exertion of Divine power — if the laws of matter
could be shown to be modes of God's agency, and
the properties of matter modes of His manifes-
tation— if Berkleyanism could be proved true, —
some persons would say that, so far as the physi-
cal universe was concerned, pantheism had been
established. I should say nothing of the kind, and
should consider such an application of the term
pantheism as not only unwarranted but injudicious,
because unnecessarily provocative of religious pre-
judice. Physical nature is not represented by the
view to which I refer as in the least degree more
commensurate with the Divine power than by the
common view. It may have been the free pro-
duction of a volition, and may be an inexpressibly
less adequate measure of the might of God, than a
thought or word is of the power of man. It may

y

33^ Anti-Theistic Theories.

have left in God an infinite energy which He can
direct and apply according to the good pleasure of
His will. In like manner, if all human minds were
proved to exist — as some have supposed them to
do — through the conditions of intelligence called
primary ideas ; and if these primary ideas could be
ascertained to be — what some hold that they are —
thoughts of God, not only present in the mind of
man, but constituting it what it is, — although Divine
thought would thereby be represented as the sub-
stance, so to speak, of human minds, yet if a dis-
tinct individuality and real freedom could be justly
attributed to these minds, pantheism in the strict
and proper sense would not be established. The
creature is so dependent on the Creator as to exist
only in, through, and by Him. What amount of
being it has in itself no man can tell. The quantity
of being, the degree of being, possessed by the
creature is certainly indeterminate. The finite
cannot weigh itself in the balances of substance or
being with the Infinite. It cannot ascertain what
measure of being, what amount of substance, it
has, as distinguished from the Infinite. Nor is it
necessary that if should try to do so in order to
preserve itself from pantheism and its errors. It
will be sufficient for this purpose that it adhere
to the plain testimony of consciousness and con-
science, to the great facts of freedom and responsi-
bility. In knowing ourselves as self-conscious and

Nature of Paiithcisvi. 339

self-acting with a certainty far greater than any
reasoning to the contrary can produce, we have
a guarantee that the pantheism which includes
fatalism is false, — and there is, properly speaking,
no other pantheism.

Pantheism is, as regards the relation of God to
the world, the opposite extreme to what apologetic
writers call deism. The latter theory represents
God as a personal Being who exists only above
and apart from the world, and the world as a some-
thing which, although created by God, is now in-
dependent of Him, and capable of sustaining and
developing itself and performing its work, without
His aid, in virtue of its own inherent energies. It
not only distinguishes God from the world, but
separates and excludes Him from the world.
Pantheism, on the contrary, denies that God and
nature either do or can exist apart. It regards
God without nature as a cause without effect or
a substance without qualities, and nature without
God as an effect without a cause or qualities with-
out a substance. It sees in the former an abstract
conception of a power without efficiency — and in
the latter, of a shadow which is cast by no reality.
It therefore represents God and nature as eter-
nally and necessarily coexistent, as the indissol-
uble phases of an absolute unity, as but the inner
and outer side of the same whole, as but one
existence under a double aspect. Theism takes

340 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

an Intermediate view. It maintains with deism
that God is a personal Being, who created the
world intelligently and freely, and is above it and
independent of it ; but it maintains also with pan-
theism that He is everywhere present and active
in the world, " upholding all things by the word of
His power," and so inspiring and working in them
that "in Him they live, and move, and have their
being." It contradicts deism in so far as that
system represents the universe as independent of
God, and pantheism in so far as it represents God
as dependent on the universe. It excludes what
is erroneous and retains what is correct in both
deism and pantheism. It is thus at once the pure
truth and the whole truth.

Pantheism has appeared in a far greater variety
of phases, and has presented a far richer combina-
tion of elements, than materialism. It has always
endeavoured to comprehend and harmonise aspira-
tions and facts, ideas and realities, the infinite and
the finite. It has tried all methods of investiga-
tion and exposition, and has assumed a multitude
of forms. It has had great constructive skill dis-
played on it, and has been adorned with all sorts
of beauties. But just because its history is far
broader and richer than that of materialism, it is
also one which it is far more difficult worthily to
delineate. It is not much to be wondered at that
there should be no adequate history of pantheism.

Hindu Pantheism. 341

I cannot attempt to trace even the general course
of that history, and yet I cannot wholly ignore the
subject, seeing that pantheism can only be under-
stood through the study of its actual development.
Nothing can be more delusive than an estimate
of pantheism based exclusively on a definition or
general description.^

It is an error to regard India as the sole fountain-
head of pantheism. Wherever we find traces of
speculation on the origin of things, there we also
find traces of pantheism. But nowhere was the
soil so congenial to it as in India, and nowhere
else has it flourished so luxuriantly. It has over-
spread the whole land — overgrown the whole
Hindu mind and life. The pantheism of India,
however, has always been to some extent com-
bined or associated with theism. There are hymns
in the Rig-Veda, relative to creation, which are
distinctly more monotheistic than pantheistic. In
many passages of the Upanishads, the national
epics, and the philosophical soutras and commen-
taries, the Universal Soul is certainly not described
as strictly impersonal. But theism in India was
never either strong or pure, and has never been

1 See Appendix XXXIV.

342 Anti-Theistic Theories.

able even to hold its own against the deeply and
firmly rooted pantheism of the land.

The literature of India shows us the successiv^e
stages through which its religion has passed. The
earliest is that disclosed to us in the oldest Vedic
hymns. It was a phase of religious naturalism.
The objects and aspects of the universe, and espe-
cially light and its manifestations, assumed in
the imaginations and feelings of the primitive
Aryan settlers in India a divine character. The
bright sky, the sun, the dawn, the fire, the winds,
the clouds, were deemed by them to be instinct
with life, thought, and affection — beings to whom
prayers and sacrifices ought to be offered — agents
at once physical and divine. With such deities,
however, the mind could not long rest in a pro-
gressive society. They were too vague and in-
determinate; they wanted character and individ-
uality. The intellect, the imagination, the heart,
craved for more definite personalities, and grad-
ually developed naturalism, into, or replaced it
by, anthropomorphism. Elemental deities yielded
to human deities. The two states indicated are,
however, merely stages of a single process. The
naturalism by no means wholly excluded the at-
tributing of human qualities to the deified natural
powers, and the anthropomorphism absorbed into
itself much of the naturalism out of which it had
grown. It would also seem that a certain con-

Hindu Pa7itJieisin.

343

sclousness of an ultimate unity underlying the
worshipped powers and persons — of a common
Divine source, of which they were the issues and
expressions — was never entirely extruded or ex-
tinguished by the polytheism of either of these
two stages. It was in greatest danger, perhaps,
of being lost under the latter, when imagination
was actively creating anthropomorphic deities; but
even then the craving of mind and heart after unity
was seen in the exaltation of some one of the gods
to supremacy. This led, however, only to self-
contradiction and confusion ; now one god, and
now another — now Varuna, now Indra, now Agni
— being represented and revered as the highest, or
even the absolute, deity. With the rise and pre-
dominance of a cultured, thoughtful, speculative
class, the priestly class, a more elevated, abstract,
and comprehensive unity was conceived of — Brah-
ma. The idea of Brahma is that of a being inde-
finable in itself, but perceptible* in its forms, the
substantial reality of all that exists, the universal
life in which the world is absorbed and from which
it issues. This idea was the natural result of the
whole course of religious thought represented in
the Vedas, although in the Vedas it is only found
in a quite rudimentary condition. All subsequent
Hindu speculation, however, contributed either
directly or indirectly to evolve it. To explain in
detail how and why, would be to write the longest

344 Auti-Theistic Theories.

and most important chapter in the history of Hin-
du civilisation. In what we may call the straight
hne of development lie the works which may be
regarded as the sources and authorities of the
philosophy which is generally admitted to have
most fully deduced the conclusions implied in the
Vedas, and which is undoubtedly the completest
expression of Hindu pantheism — the Vedanta phil-
osophy. The chief stages of the growth of this
philosophy out of its Vedic germ, can be traced by
the help of the literary documents with consider-
able certainty; but I can, of course, merely indi-
cate the general character of its doctrine.

The central idea in the Vedanta theory is, that
there is only one real being, and that this being
is absolutely one. All material things and finite
minds are conceived of as but emanations from
the sole entity, and all that seems to imply inde-
pendent existence is referred to ignorance. The
whole of science is comprised, according to Vedant-
ism, in the one formula — ** Brahma alone exists ;
everything else is illusion." The truth of this
formula is held to be implied in the very idea of
Brahma, as the one eternal, unlimited, pure, and
perfect being. If there existed a multitude of
realities which had an origin and an end, which
were finite, compounded, and imperfect, they must
have originated in Brahma. But this they could
not have done, it is argued, unless Brahma had

Hiiidn PantJieism. 345

within himself the real principle of multiplicity,
limitation; or, in other words, unless he were really
not one, not eternal, not perfect. To ascribe real
being and individuality to anything but Brahma,
is equivalent to denying that Brahma is Brahma.
Nor can there be any qualities and distinctions
in Brahma. The absolute unity must be at once
absolute reality and absolute knowledge. Were
absolute being and absolute knowing not identi-
cal, there could be no absolute identity, no being
absolutely one. Brahma, the universal soul, is the
absolute knowledge which is inclusive of, and self-
identical with, reality. But absolute knowledge
cannot be the knowledge of anything, for this im-
plies the distinction of subject and object, which is
of itself a limitation both of subject and object.
Absolute knowledge must exclude the dualism of
subject and object, and every kind of synthesis
and relation.

Thus argues the Vedantist. What are we to
think of his argument } Merely that it is logi-
cally valid. It deduces correctly a false conclusion
from a false principle. He who will hold to the
belief in an absolute abstract unity must neces-
sarily identify knowing and being, and deny that
pure knowing admits of a distinction between
subject and object. But such a unity as this
cannot be reasonably entertained by the mind.
To ask reason to start from it, is to ask it to

34^ Aiiti-TJicistic Theories.

start with a contradiction of its own fundamental
laws. Besides, no kind of multiplicity or diversity
can ever be shown to be consistent with such unity.
The existence in some sense, however, of a multi-
tude of different things, cannot be denied and must
be accounted for. We perceive a variety of separ-
ate finite objects and are conscious of imperfection
and limitation in ourselves. We do not perceive
an infinite unity which is neither subject nor
object, and which is perfect and unlimited, nor
are we conscious of identity with it. How are
we to explain this on the Vedantist hypothesis 1
How are we to reconcile the reason which denies
with the consciousness which afiirms distinctions
and limitations t How are we to connect the one
and the many, the absolute and the relative }

The hypothesis of emanation may be had re-
course to, but it is obviously insufficient. Emana-
tion is a physical process, and only possible be-
cause matter is essentially multiple and divisible.
The fire sends forth sparks just because it is no
unity but a multitude — an aggregate. The sparks
are not identical either with one another or with
the fire ; they and all other parts of the fire are
distinct from one another, although all the parts
are of the same sort. The notion of emanation
and the notion of absolute unity are exclusive
of each other. The Vedantists saw this, and con-
fessed that all the similes which they made use

Hindu Pantheism 347

of drawn from instances of emanation in physical
nature were radically defective. They claimed no
more for them than that they might help intelli-
gence in what they described as its dream-state,
to believe that nothing exists except Brahma. In
other words, they admitted that these similes were
addressed, not to the reason, but to the imagina-
tion. Hence it was necessary for them to supple-
ment the hypothesis of emanation by another —
that of illusion caused by ignorance.

The problem which they had to solve was to
reconcile their theory of only one being with their
consciousness of many beings. It was a problem
which they could not solve, but they so far con-
cealed their failure to solve it by making, as Dr
Ballantyne has said, "the fact itself do duty for
its own cause." The soul does not know that God
alone is, and that finite souls and finite things are
not, because it does not know it — because it is
ignorant. Were it not for ignorance the worlds
of sense and consciousness would not appear —
God alone would be. It is ignorance which has
made the appearances that we call \vorlds and
souls, and these appearances are mere illusions —
deceits. They are maya. It is impossible, of
course, to find any satisfaction in such an hypo-
thesis. Who is it that Brahma is deceiving }
Himself. Why should he do that.? And how
can he do it t I<7norance and illusion are im-

348 Anti-Theistic Theories.

plied in our consciousness of the world and of
self being false, but they are not implied in, nor
even consistent with, its being true that there is
no being save one absolute and perfect being.
The latter supposition precludes the possibility
of ignorance, appearance, illusion, &c. The Ve-
dantists, however, could not dispense with igno-
rance and illusion. It was only thus that they
could seem to adhere to their absolute unity. It
was only in the state of illusion that they could
think of Brahma, and only with the help even
of very material imagery that they could speak
of him.

I might now proceed to explain the Vedanta
theory of the three qualities of ignorance, which,
separately or in combination, obscure the know-
ledge which constitutes the essence of the soul ;
and of its two powers, the one originating belief
in our consciousness of personality, and the other
accounting for the dream that there is an external
world. I might also dwell on the Vedanta theory
of the nature and laws of the evolution of phe-
nomena. The transformations of Brahma, of which
the evolution consists, are supposed to take place
according to both a diminishing and an increasing
progression, the former being from more to less
perfect, and the latter from less to more definite.
I am compelled, however, to leave unconsidered
these and other portions of the system, and must

Hindu PcDitJicisni. 349

content myself with merely stating that the theory
of human life and destiny, based on the view of
God and nature which has been delineated, is just
that which we should have anticipated. The end
of man is regarded as the perfect repose which
must result from union with the absolute. It is
held to be only attainable through the science
which is comprised in the formula — "one only
without a second." The way to reach true science
is maintained to be meditation on Revelation, with
renunciation of the world and pious dispositions
and exercises. The effects of it are described as
freedom from ignorance, error, the possibility of
sin, desire, activity, transmigration, and change.
Whoever knows Brahma becomes Brahma. He
is freed from the illusion that he has any distinct
personal existence. He shakes off pleasure and
pain, virtue and vice, all distinctions and qualities.
He returns into the essence whence he came, and
attains the highest identity. In a word, from the
pantheism of the Vedanta philosophy, all its chief
consequences are deduced with a boldness and
consistency which justify its claim to be regarded
as among the greatest systems to which specula-
tion has given birth.

In the pantheism of the Vedanta doctrine the
finite is lost in the infinite. Along with the affir-
mation of an impersonal God there is the negation
of the reality of the worlds, both of sense and con-

350 Anti-Theistic Theories.

sciousness. In other words, the issue of this kind
of pantheism is acosmism. But pantheism is just
as Hkely to issue in atheism. Those who are
determined to reach an absolute unity, while yet
feeUng constrained to admit that physical objects
and finite minds have a veritable existence, must
sacrifice the infinite to the finite — God to nature, —
must represent God as an abstraction and nullity.
From this virtual atheism there is but a step to
avowed atheism. The Sankhya philosophy and
Buddhism are the Hindu exemplifications of this
tendency of pantheistic speculation.^

From India let us pass on to Greece. In India
philosophy as a rule rests on the Vedas. Its sys-
tems are classed as orthodox or heterodox. Hence
Hegel has aptly compared the Hindu to the scho-
lastic systems, as being systems of philosophy
within systems of theology. Even the Sankhya
system, which can hardly be said to acknowledge
the authority of the Vedas, and which is really
atheistical in character, yet proposes to itself for
final aim a religious end, the securing of salva-
tion to man, and recommends the pursuit of truth
only as a means to that end. In Greece it was
otherwise. Philosophy there had from the first
a sort of consciousness of a function of its own.
It invoked no anterior or supernatural authority.
The influence of religion upon it was real and

1 See Appendix XXXV.

Greek PantJieisiii. 351

considerable, but indirect and secondary. It was
content to trust entirely in reason, and to aim at
nothing beyond truth.

All the pre - Socratic schools of Greek philos-
ophy, with the exception of that of Democritus,
were more or less pantheistic ; but only in the
Eleatic philosophy does early Greek pantheism
appear fully developed. It bears a most strijting
resemblance to the Vedanta theory. Almost all
that is needed to convert Vedanta doctrine into
Eleatic doctrine is to substitute the word Being
for the word Brahma. The more closely I have
examined and compared the two systems, the
more I have been impressed with this truth ; and
yet there can be no doubt that the one system was
as thoroughly Greek as the other was thoroughly
Hindu.

The Eleatic philosophy was founded by Xeno-
phanes, and brought to perfection by Parmenides.
I shall state very briefly its leading principles as
taught by the latter. His cardinal principle is
the opposition of being and appearance, truth and
opinion, reason and sense. To being corresponds
reason ; to appearance, sense. Reason apprehend-
ing being is truth ; sense apprehending appearance
is opinion. Being and appearance, reason and
sense, truth and opinion, are essentially irrecon-
cilable and contradictory. All truth belongs to
reason, which alone can apprehend being. There

352 Anti-Theistic Theories.

is no truth in sense ; and the credit which men
attach to its testimony is merely a proof of their
tendency to follow " the road of appearance, where
nought but fallacy reigneth." Parmenides had the
courage to challenge the authority of external im-
pressions, and of all reasoning from them, and dis-
tinctly to deny that material things exist as we
see them, or need exist at all because we believe
that we see them. So far as the senses and their
objects were concerned, he was an avowed sceptic.
His scepticism, however, was a means, and not an
end. He denied, and laboured to destroy, the
authority of sense, but only in order to afhrm and
establish the authority of reason. He desired
that reason should rule without a rival. His phil-
osophy was, therefore, essentially not scepticism,
but dogmatic idealism. It rested on reason alone,
and on reason understood in the strictest, narrow^-
est, most exclusive manner — on reason reduced to
a single idea, and expressed in a single truth.

What was the truth which he regarded as the
one truth, the whole truth } It was this : *' Being
is, and cannot but be ; not-being is not, and can-
not be. One can affirm everything of being, and
nothing of not-being." He started where his pre-
decessor, Xenophanes, ended. Xenophanes passed
from the thought of God to the thought of abso-
lute being ; Parmenides began with absolute being.
He was quite aware of the sort of contradiction

Greek Pantheism. 353

involved in saying at one and the same time, " not-
being is not, and cannot be," and " one can affirm no-
thing of not-being." He felt that he had to speak
so because the very notion of not-being is a contra-
diction, and all speech about it must be a contra-
diction. "One can neither know not-being," he
said, " nor express it in words : for it has in it
no possibility of being." His not-being did not
mean non-existence, but all that sense and ordi-
nary thought apprehend as existence ; it included
earth, air, ocean, and the minds of men. The
whole multiple and divisible universe was what he
held to be the not-being, which is to reason a con-
tradiction so great that it is impossible even to
speak of it in a rational manner. His "what is
not is not" was not a truism, but a paradox.

In deducing a doctrine of being, Parmenides
displayed great speculative boldness and ability.
I can merely state the results at which he arrived.
1°, Being, he argued, is absolutely one. It is not
an abstract unity, but the only reality. It so is
that it alone is. 2°, Being, he further affirmed, is
continuous and indivisible ; it is everywhere like
to itself, -and everywhere alike present. Were
there parts in being there would be plurality, and
being would not be one — that is, would not be
being. There can be no differences or distinctions
in being ; for what is different and distinct from
being must be not-being, and not-being is not.

z

354 Anti-Theistic Theories.

3°, Being, he also maintained, is incapable of
change or motion in space. It cannot exist either
in a state of rest or movement analogous to the
rest and movement of the material world. We
conceive of bodies only as in space, and of their
changes only as changes of their parts relative to
different points of space ; but absolute being has
no parts with relations to the different points of
what is called space. Bodies and their parts, space
and its points, are mere appearances, with which true
being has nothing in common. 4°, Being, he further
argued, is immobile in time. It can have neither
birth nor destruction, past nor future. 5°, Being was
affirmed by him to be perfect — itself alone an end
or limit to itself. 6°, Being, he likewise held —
anticipating Hegel as he had anticipated Kant —
is identical with thought. It could not otherwise
be absolutely one. " Thought," he said, " is the
same thing as being. Thought must be being ;
for being exists, and non-being is nothing." And
again, '' But thought is identical with its object ;
for without being, on which it rests, you will not
find thought — nothing, in fact, is or will be dis-
tinct from being."

Parmenides, you will perceive, was not a man
easily daunted. Pantheism has rarely been more
consistent and complete than it was in his hands.
The world was as entirely lost in his Being as in the
Vedantist Brahma. But as in India, so in Greece,
there was a pantheism of a contrary kind — one in

Greek Pantheism. 355

which unity was virtually lost in multiplicity, the
absolute in the phenomenal. Perhaps the Hera-
clitean doctrine was the best example presented
by the history of Greek philosophy of a pan-
theism of this kind. Heraclitus, having sought in
vain for any permanent principle, for any abso-
lute being, was led to maintain that the universe
is merely a process of incessant change ; that its
essence is not being, but becoming ; that fire per-
vaded by intelligence is its universal ground and
fittest symbol ; and that the human mind is a
portion of the all-pervasive mind, and can only
attain truth through communion with it.

With Socrates and Plato the course of spec-
ulation took, on the whole, a theistic direction.
In Aristotle it tended rather towards pantheism.
Stoicism was originally and predominantly a ma-
terialistic or hylozoic form of pantheism; but some
of its greatest representatives conceived of God in
a decidedly theistic manner as the supreme moral
reason. In stoicism everything was subordinated
to morality, and only its ethics was sublime. Its
theology was crude and confused, and I pass over
it without regret.^

II.

Christianity did not arrest the progress of pan-
theism as it did that of materialism. On the

See Appendix XXXVL

356 Anti-Theistic Theories.

contrary, it seemed to stimulate and increase its
activity. In the second, third, fourth, and fifth
centuries of our era there was a vast amount of
pantheistic speculation influenced by and influ-
encing Christianity, sometimes directly opposing
it, sometimes endeavouring to incorporate its doc-
trines and establish them on a philosophical basis,
and sometimes claiming to be identical with it and
entitled to its authority. I need only remind you
of the Gnostic systems, and of the Neo-Platonic
philosophy of Alexandria. When Gnosticism and
Neo-Platonism seemed to be vanquished and de-
stroyed, they were, in reality, merely transformed.
They entered into Judaism with the Cabbala, and
into Christianity with the writings of the so-called
Dionysius the Areopagite. On the threshold of
the middle ages a very remarkable man— John
Scott Erigena — made a most vigorous and elabo-
rate attempt to reconcile and combine a panthe-
istic philosophy and the doctrine of the Christian
Church, on the assumption that philosophy and
religion are substantially one — philosophy veiled
in the form of tradition being religion, and religion
unveiled from the form of tradition by reason
being philosophy. He explained Scripture as the
symbolic self-manifestation of the absolute, and
gave ingenious speculative expositions of the
Trinity, the creation of the world and of man, the
incarnation of the Logos, &c., according to prin-

Medie val PantJieism. 357

ciples derived from Plotinus and Proclus, Origeii
and Maximus the Confessor, and especially the
pseudo-Dionysius. The latest English historian
of pantheism tells us that there was little or no
pantheism in the middle ages. This is about as
accurate as it would be to say that there are no
Methodists at present in England or Ultramon-
tanists in France. Pantheism was prevalent all
throuL;h the middle ages ; and medieval pan-
theism, unlike modern pantheism, was not con-
fined to speculative individuals, but was adopted
by considerable communities — the Beghards and
Beguines, the Brothers and Sisters of the Free
Spirit, the Turlupins, the Adamites, the Familists,
the Spiritual Libertines, &c. This popular pan-
theism was partly due to the persistence of the
ancient pagan spirit among the uneducated masses,
and partly to reaction from, the externality and
formalism which characterised medieval Christi-
anity. It died away before the light of the
Reformation, owing to Protestantism giving to
the religious instincts of the people a satisfaction
which Romanism denied to them.

In the year 1600 the brilliant inaugurator of
modern pantheism, Jordano Bruno, was burned
at Rome. His bold, teeming, imaginative mind,
susceptible to the most varied influences, origin-
ated a grandiose system, rich in its elements and
vast in its scope, but devoid of self-consistency,

358 Anti-Theistic Theories.

method, and proof. It combined without harmon-
ising the Eleatic, Neo - Platonic, and naturalistic
pantheisms ; naturalism being perhaps predomi-
nant, owing to the powerful hold which the dis-
coveries of Copernicus, and the idea of an infinity
of worlds, had taken of the author's mind. Bruno
was the precursor of Spinoza, by whom his writ-
ings were carefully studied.^

Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) is the most celebrated
of all pantheists, and I must delineate as dis-
tinctly as I can within the narrow limits to which
I am confined his theory of God, and of the rela-
tion of God to the universe. It is a theory which
was drawn from a multitude of sources — the
Talmud, the Cabbala, Maimonides, Ben Gerson,
Chasdai Creskas, Bruno, Descartes, &c. — which
was slowly and gradually developed, and which
passed through various phases in its author's mind
before it was elaborated into the shape which it
assumed in the last and greatest of his works, the
* Ethica.' It is in its final form that we must look
at it.

Thinking philosophy ought to be purely deduc-
tive— ought to start from a single point fixed by
the necessities of reason, and be carried on by
sheer force of logic in the form of a continuous
demonstration to all its consequences — Spinoza
very naturally, and had his supposition been cor-

1 See Appendix XXXVII.

Spifioza. 359

rect, very justly, imagined that the order of know-
ledge must be the same as the order of existence.
What is first in reality must, he thought, be first
in science. So he began with God, the first, the
self-existent Being. This, however, cannot but
be a stumbling-block to all who believe that the
inductive process is that of philosophy, or even
that philosophy has to take account of the results
of the inductive sciences. In all inductive science,
principles which are first in the order of nature
are last in the order of intelligence. It is only in
mathematical science that first principles are first
in the order both of nature and intelligence. All,
therefore, who cannot admit that philosophy is
mathematical or demonstrative science — who ac-
knowledge that unity is her goal or aim, but deny
that it is her starting-point — will feel that Spinoza
has begun at the wrong end, however natural it
may have been for him to begin at that end.

His doctrine of the Divine nature is unfolded in
a series of thirty-seven propositions, all professedly
demonstrated, and many of them having corol-
laries and scholia. This series of propositions is
prefaced by eight definitions and seven axioms.
Most of the axioms look very innocent, but they
are not as innocent as they look. There seems to
be no danger in assenting to such an affirmation
as "All that is, is either in itself, or in some thing
other than itself," which is axiom first ; but danger

3^0 Anti-Theistic Theories.

there is ; and you will find this axiom used under
proposition sixth to prove that there is nothing in
the universe but substance and the affections of
substance; under proposition fifteenth, to prove
that thought and extension are either attributes
of God, or modes of His attributes ; and so in
many other places, precisely as if there was only
one way of being in a thing, or as if in denoted a
particular kind of inherence. It seems quite safe
to assent to a statement like this, " Whatever can
be thought of as non- existing does not in its
essence involve existence," but no ; it is true only
if it is the truism. Whatever can be thought of as
non-existing need not be thought of as existing ;
whereas it is not so understood, but in application
is made to do duty for the very different affirma-
tion. What can be conceived of as existing in its
essence involves existence, so as to conceal in
some measure one great failure of the system —
its inability to establish that the notions it deals
with answer to what really exists.

The definitions, unlike the axioms, present
difificulties which almost every one who reads
them in some measure feels. Spinoza had given
them many an altering touch to bring them into
the form which they bear in the Ethics, as he
always found that, although they seemed to him
the simplest and most self-evident truths, his
friends felt it difficult to accept, or even to under-

Spinoza. 361

stand them. I have no time to examine these
definitions of "cause of itself," "the finite in its
kind," "substance," "attribute," "mode," "God,"
" free and necessary," " eternity ; " but I must enter
my decided protest against the opinion expressed
by Mr Lewes and others, that no criticism of them
is needed, since they are definitions of terms.
" They need not," says Mr Lewes, " long be dwelt
on, although frequently referred to by Spinoza ;
above all, no objection ought to be raised against
them as unusual or untrue, for they are the mean-
ings of various terms in constant use with Spinoza,
and he has a right to use them as he pleases, pro-
vided he does not afterwards depart from this use,
which he is careful not to do." Well, no doubt
Spinoza had so far a right to define the terms he
intended to use as he pleased, on condition of
keeping strictly to his definitions, but he may also
have abused his right. Euclid might have called
the circle a square and the square a circle, might
have interchanged the names of line and surface
and solid, yet defined them all correctly, and rea-
soned on them all correctly ; but it would have
been a very unwise thing in him to have thus
severed and opposed the popular and scientific
use of these terms, and would have led to much
confusion even in mathematics. Now Spinoza
has done something not very different from this
in his definitions of "substance," "mode," ''free

362 Anti-Thcistic Theories.

and necessary," and "eternity." Further, if we
may not object to a man's definitions of terms
as unusual or untrue, we certainly may object to
them if obscure, if ambiguous, if self-contradictory,
if definitions of the inherently absurd. If Euclid's
definition of a circle, for example, had been diffi-
cult to understand, or if it had been as true of a
square as of a circle, or if he had offered us a defi-
nition of a square circle, or of parallel lines that
meet, we should have had abundance of reason
to object. And obscurity, ambiguity, self-contra-
diction, are just the charges which will be brought
against such definitions as those which Spinoza
gives of "cause of itself" and "substance." As to
the statement that he was careful not to depart from
that use of his terms which he prescribed to him-
self by his definitions, I have no doubt that he was
careful — that he did his best — being thoroughly
honest and sincere, anxious to deceive no one,
anxious not to deceive himself; but I have as
little doubt that with all his care he was not suc-
cessful, and that his use of terms was often in-
consistent with his definitions, or consistent only
through the ambiguity of the definitions. Nor
could he help himself. A man who reasoned in
geometry from definitions of square circles and
parallel lines that meet, would find it impossible
to be consistent in his use of terms ; scarcely more
possible was a consistent use of them to one who

Spinoza. 363

started, like Spinoza, with definitions of " cause of
itself" and "substance in itself."

His central definition is that of God : " God is a
being absolutely infinite ; in other words, God is
substance, constituted by an infinity of attributes,
each of which expresses an eternal and infinite
essence." This is presented to us as an intuitive
truth, clear and certain in its own self- evidence,
as a principle on which we may safely reason
to any Jength, with the conviction of knowing as
thoroughly what it means as we know what Euclid
means by isosceles, or scalene, or right-angled tri-
angle. In reality, it is far more mysterious than
any proposition contained in the creeds of the
Church respecting the Trinity or the Incarnation.
It is difficult to understand how Spinoza could
expect that men would receive as self-evident, on
the bare statement of it, such an assertion as that
" God is substance constituted by an infinity of
attributes ; " or how he could overlook that if sub-
stance is constituted by attributes it cannot be
what he himself defines it to be, " that which is in
itself, and is conceived by itself, or that the concep-
tion of which does not involve the conception of
anything else as that from which it is formed." The
definition of God I have called Spinoza's central
definition, because it includes, takes up into itself, the
other definitions. There occur in it, you will have
observed, the words substance, attribute, infinite,

364 Anti-Theistic Theories.

eternal. It includes, therefore, directly, the defini-
tions given of these four words. It includes the
word "essence," which should have been defined
here, and is defined in part second. It includes
the phrase "absolutely infinite," which receives
not a definition, but an explanation that amounts
to a definition. The only definitions which it does
not directly include are those of " cause in itself,"
" free," and " mode ; " but the two former are so
defined as to be identical with substance, as to be
substance itself in two aspects, and the last as
an affection of substance. Directly or indirectly,
therefore, the definition of God includes all the
other definitions. The consequence is obvious.
It is that, directly or indirectly, that definition
includes all that is obscure, ambiguous, self-con-
tradictory, in all the definitions. It is a guarantee
that whatever there is of this kind in any of these
definitions will be worked into the doctrine of the
Divine nature, and will corrupt that doctrine.

Spinoza was not fortunate, then, at the com-
mencement of his undertaking. Was he more
successful afterwards? Some persons think so.
Spinozism has been pronounced "a faultless de-
monstration." This is far from my opinion. The
paralogisms, the fallacies, in Spinoza are, I believe,
simply countless, because he started with vague
and ambiguous principles and pursued a hopeless
course. Had he been less convinced that he was

Spinoza. 365

right, or less able, he would have been stopped at
countless points; but the intense and honest convic-
tion of being right could not make him to be right,
and no ability could achieve the impossible.

The whole of his doctrine concerning God is in
germ in his definition of God. The first great stage
in its development is formed by the attempted
proof of the identity of the ideas of God and of
substance. The notion of substance defined, as has
been mentioned, is the foundation of his definition
of God, of his entire theological doctrine, of his
whole philosophy. A less solid or secure founda-
tion there could not be. Substance in itself, which
is what is defined, is simply what no human mind
has ever apprehended or can apprehend. Every
attempt to define substance in itself, or to reason
on it, must be repelled as a violation of the laws
of human thought, of the essential limitations of
human knowledge. Spinozism is a system founded
on this error. Spinoza had the firmest conviction
that he had a clear, distinct, and true idea of
substance in itself, that he might safely trust his
fortunes to it, and that all that he could infer from
it by strict logic would be eternal verities, certain
as anything in Euclid, far more certain than mere
experience and sense. He proceeded accordingly
to demonstrate, as he supposed, such propositions
concerning it as that substance is prior in nature
to its accidents ; that two substances having dif-

366 Anti-Theistic Theories.

ferent attributes have nothing in common with
each other ; that it is impossible that there should
be two or more substances of the same nature or of
the same attribute ; that one substance cannot be
created by another substance ; that to exist per-
tains to the nature of substance ; that all substance
is necessarily infinite ; that all substance is abso-
lutely infinite; that this sole and singular substance
— this absolutely infinite substance — is God, in
whom whatever is is, without whom nothing can
be conceived, of whom all that is must be some
sort of attributes or modes. Thus he gradually
worked out the conclusion that God is the one
and all of substance, beyond which there is noth-
ing, and in which all that is has such being as
belongs to it

The second great stage in the development of
his doctrine of the Divine nature is the deduction
of the attributes of the one absolutely infinite sub-
stance. An attribute is defined by him as "what-
ever the intellect perceives of substance as con-
stituting the essence of substance." Substance
and attributes are inseparable. Substance has
necessarily attributes, each of which expresses in
its own way the essence of substance, and is there-
fore, as that essence is, infinite, although only in
its own way. Substance has necessarily even an
infinity of attributes, for it is absolutely infinite, and
only an infinity of attributes can adequately repre-

Spinoza. 2,^y

sent a nature which Is not only Infinite but abso-
lutely or Infinitely Infinite. Out of this Infinite
number of attributes two only are known to us, —
extension and thought. God Is conceived as think-
ing substance when He Is apprehended by the mind
under the attribute of thought, and as extended
substance when He Is conceived under the attribute
of extension; but thinking substance and extended
substance are not two substances distinct from one
another, but the one substance apprehended by the
mind of man, now under this attribute, now under
that. Extension as a Divine attribute Is, accord-
ing to Spinoza, very difTerent from the finite ex-
tension which belongs to body : it has no length,
bulk, depth, shape, divisibility, or movability, and
in referring It to Deity none of these things are
referred to Him ; It is Incapable of being appre-
hended by sense or Imagination ; capable only of
being apprehended by reason. Divine thought Is
likewise altogether different from human thought :
it is absolute thought — thought which has infinite
substance itself for object ; which is In no way
limited or determined ; which Is unconditioned by
anything like a faculty of understanding ; which
falls under no law of succession, separation, or
plurality.

The doctrine has still another stage. Substance
with Its attributes is God as the cause or source
of the universe. But what is the universe Itself.^

3^8 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

What are the sun and stars, earth and ocean ?
What are living things, human bodies and human
minds, human experience and human history?
They are, Spinoza argues, modes of the attributes
of God. Modes express the essence of the attri-
butes as the attributes express the essence of
substance. The modes of each attribute are neces-
sarily finite in nature, because an attribute is not
a substance, and therefore not infinitely infinite;
but they are necessarily infinite in number, because
each attribute has a real although particular in-
finity. Infinite thought must express itself by an
infinite number of ideas, and infinite extension
by an infinite variety of magnitudes, forms, and
motions. These modes constitute and compose the
whole world of the senses and the whole world of
consciousness. Man himself is but a combina-
tion of these modes. His soul is a mode of Di-
vine thought, and his body is a mode of Divine
extension.

I think this doctrine must be admitted to be
devoid neither of simplicity nor grandeur. It has
certainly been constructed with wonderful archi-
tectonic skill. God is the one and all. He is the
infinitely infinite, the only substance. From this
substance necessarily proceeds an infinity of par-
ticular attributes. From each attribute necessarily
proceeds an infinite number of finite. These modes
constitute what is called the universe. There is

Spinoza. 369

nothing which is not necessarily evolved from, and
essentially included in, God. Of course this is
pantheism. And yet it is very easy to err as to
where the pantheism of it lurks, as a i^w remarks
may help to show.

Take the first stage of the doctrine which has
been delineated. Many have thought that when
Spinoza has reached the conclusion that there is
only one substance, and that God is that substance,
he has attained the completest possible pantheism.
But no ; pantheism is still, properly speaking, far
distant. For Spinoza includes, it must be remem-
bered, in his definition of substance, as the very
essence of what he means by it, the notion of
self-existence. We may fairly object that it was
injudicious thus to give the word a meaning so
unusual ; still, of course, we must interpret it as he
was pleased to employ it. Do this, however, and
manifestly there is no substance but God, for thefe
is no other self-existent being. Everything else,
everything in nature, every finite mind, exists only
through another than itself, exists only through
God — i.e., is not a Spinozistic substance. In like
manner, the proposition that one substance cannot
be produced by another substance has been repre-
sented as equivalent to a denial of the possibility
and reality of creation, a denial of the very first
words of the Bible, — "In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth." But again there is
2 A

3/0 Anti-Theistic Theories.

obvious misconception. If God created the heavens
and the earth, the heavens and the earth are not
self-existent — are not, according to Spinoza, sub-
stances. Spinoza does not deny that God pro-
duced things, but that He produced things the
essences of which involve existence. What he
affirms is, that God is not only the cause why
things begin to exist, but also why they continue
in existence. His language is pantheistic in sound,
but had he adhered strictly to his own definitions
it would have been quite consistent with theism in
signification. Not unnaturally, however, he was
the dupe of his own language, and fancied that he
disproved the possibility of creation in the ordinary
acceptation of the doctrine.

When we pass to his theory of the Divine attri-
butes we find that, under a specious appearance of
consistency, it is so incoherent and confused that
no definite designation can be appropriately at-
tached to it. We welcome his affirmation that
God has an infinity of attributes which are un-
known to us, as an admission that God in infinite
ways transcends the powers of apprehension pos-
sessed by finite minds. But we are compelled to
ask, Can there be in a substance which is abso-
lutely one, as conceived of by Spinoza, any attri-
butes which are not relative to minds distinct from
that substance ? Can there be any attributes ob-
jectively in the substance itself.'* If the answer be

Spinoza. 37 1

in the negative — be that the attributes of substance
exist only for minds, or arise only from the rela-
tions of substance to minds — substance is obviously
not the absolute and comprehensive unity from
which all proceeds, but implies, yea, presupposes
the existence of minds which are distinct from it.
It becomes impossible to regard it as the primary
and universal existence, apart from which nothing
is, or as more than a merely secondary and par-
ticular object of mind. If the answer be in the
affirmative, the notion of substance is none the less
displaced and destroyed. The unity of substance
disappears, for, as by Spinoza's express declara-
tion, each attribute is essentially distinct from
every other, the substance is represented as an
aggregation of distinct and irreducible essences.
The whole being even of substance disappears,
for the attributes must exhaust the substance of
which they are the necessary and complete ex-
pression. The absolute substance vanishes, and
in its place appears an infinite number of uncon-
nected attributes.

Of these attributes Spinoza professed to ex-
plain only two — extension and thought. He does
so on the ground that these are the only attri-
butes of which the human understanding has
any knowledge. Yet the general outcome of his
argumentation regarding them is that the human
understanding has virtually no knowledge of them.

372 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

Because he said that God is extended, some have
mferred that he supposed God to be corporeal ;
but he endeavoured to guard himself against this
error by denying to extension everything which
characterises body, and ascribing to it a number
of peculiarities which body does not possess. As
to thought, he maintained that thought in God is
of an entirely different nature from thought in
man — that the one bears no more resemblance to
the other than the dog, a sign in the heavens,
does to the dog, an animal which barks. Thus
the only two attributes which he admits to be
accessible to the human mind he also represents
as really inaccessible to it, and utterly unlike the
extension or thought of which we have any ex-
perience. If the Divine thought have no more
resemblance to human thought than the dog-star
to the dog that barks, we have no knowledge of
the former whatever, and merely deceive ourselves
when we call it thought at all. This so-called
pantheism, instead of helping us to realise that
God is near to us, practically assures us that God
as God, as natura naturans, is unknowable by us,
and, in fact, that there is no God who can be a
God for the human mind.

At the third stage of his theory, Spinoza main-
tains that all finite things are modes of the Divine
attributes of the one Divine substance. No lan-
guage could be more pantheistic as mere language.

Spinoza. 373

But, of course, it must be remembered that by con-
fining the name of substance to the self-existent,
self-subsistent, he had condemned himself to the
use of pantheistic language, however free of pan-
theistic taint his thought might have been. He
could not call finite things substances ; he must
deny them to be substances. What could he call
them } Once you agree to restrict the term sub-
stance to what is absolute and self- existent, it
matters comparatively little what name you give
to that which is relative and created. If you call
it a mode, that means merely that it is derived
from and dependent on what is self- existent.
Spinoza's language, "all finite things are modes
of the one Divine substance," means no more, if
strictly interpreted, than that all finite things are
derived from, and dependent on, the one self-ex-
istent Being. Unfortunately, however, he has made
it impossible for us thus to interpret him. His
language must be read in the light of the fact that
he withholds alike from the substance and the
modes — from the self-existent Being and the de-
rivative and dependent existences — freedom of
will, true personality. He affirms, indeed, that
God is free ; but he is careful to explain that by
free he really means necessary ; that Divine lib-
erty is Divine activity necessarily determined by
the Divine nature, although independent of any
extraneous cause. He also expressed his belief

374 Anti'TJieistic Theories.

in the Divine personality, even when admitting
that he could form no clear conception of it, but
practically he ignored It In his theory. The result
was the sacrifice of all individual lives, of all per-
sonal character and action, of all freedom and
responsibility, to a dead, unintelligible, fatalistic
unity. Spinoza was a man of a singularly pure
and noble nature, yet he was compelled by the
force of logic to draw from his pantheism immoral
and slavish consequences which would speedily
ruin any individual or nation that ventured to
adopt them.

It would not have been difficult to draw from
it atheism itself. That was certainly not what
Spinoza taught or meant to teach. What he main-
tained was, that the Divine existence is the one
true existence, and that the whole system of what
we call nature exists only through connection with
it. He did not say that space, as we understand
space, and time, in the sense of duration, and the
worlds which are in space and time, and what
these worlds contain, are all that there is ; on the
contrary, he said that, besides these things, there
was the whole universe of true being — substance
with infinite attributes unknown to us, and with
others somewhat known, absolute extension, ab-
solute eternity, absolute thought, absolute activ-
ity. None the less did his idea of God involve the

Spinozism. 375

very doctrine to which it seemed to be the contrary
extreme. If the absolute substance must express
itself necessarily and completely in its attributes,
it must be absorbed and exhausted in these at-
tributes ; and if they in turn must necessarily and
completely evolve into modes, only modes will
remain. It may be said that substance, attributes,
and modes are eternally distinct, although eter-
nally connected ; but this cannot be rationally
thought or believed if absolute activity be ne-
cessary activity. In this case the monism of
Spinoza must inevitably disintegrate and dissolve
into monadism — his pantheism into atheism or
naturalism.^

I have dwelt at some length on Spinozism from
a desire to present one good example of what a
pantheistic system is, it being impossible for me in
the circumstances to delineate a variety of typical
instances. I might have selected my specimen
from later times, and discoursed on the pantheism
of a Fichte, or Schelling, or Hegel. But I am
convinced that this would have been unprofitable.
The theories of any of these thinkers can only
be intelligently exhibited and fairly criticised in
lengthened expositions which permit much ex-
planation and illustration. Good brief summaries
of their systems exist in various histories of phil-
1 See Appendix XXXVIII.

37^ Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

osophy, but I doubt if unprofessional students will
be greatly the wiser after the perusal even of the
best of them.

So far as the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling,
and Hegel were pantheistic in their nature, or had
a pantheistic interpretation imposed upon them,
they presented only very inadequate and un-
worthy views of God. He is surely not to be
identified with the moral order of the universe, or
with an absolute indifference^of subject and object
which develops itself in reality and ideality, nature
and spirit, or with a self-evolving impersonal pro-
cess which, after having traversed all the spheres
of matter and mind, attains a knowledge of its
Godhead in the speculative reason of man. These
are not rational thoughts but foolish fancies,' al-
though there may have be^n associated with them
much that is true, suggestive, and profound. It
was natural, therefore, that the ideaK^tic pan'theism
attributed to the philosophers just named ^hould
have very soon almost disappeared even in Ger-
many itself It was like a fountain of mingled
sweet and bitter waters w^hich had scarcely
emerged into the light of ^day before they parted
into two distinct streams, the one being that which
is known as speculative theism, and the other bear-
ing various names, but always presenting some
phase of naturalistic or humanitarian atheism.
Pantheism is always in unstable equilibrium be-

Recent PantJicisvi. 377

tween theism and atheism, and is logically neces-
sitated to elevate itself to the one or to descend to
the other.^

When idealism is followed from Germany into
France it becomes still more difficult to decide
whether or not it is to be described as pantheism
in any of the forms which it has there assumed.
The Abbe Maret, one of the historians of panthe-
ism, represents not only M. Cousin but all the
chief members of the Eclectic school as pantheists.
This is, however, a very exaggerated view. M.
Cousin himself can merely be charged with hold-
ing tenets which involve pantheism, not with ex-
plicitly teaching it ; while the eclectics as a body
have maintained the cause of theism with con-
spicuous zeal and talent. The views of M.
Renan as to Deity are so vague and incoherent
that one hesitates to attach to them any name.
He prays with rapt devotion to the Father, the
Father in heaven, and we fancy we are overhear-
ing the supplications of a Christian theist ; he
vows, *' I think there is not in the universe an
intelligence superior to that of man," and we con-
elude that he is an atheist ; he asks, "Who knows
if the highest term of progress after millions of
ages may not evoke the absolute consciousness of
the universe, and in this consciousness the awak-
ening of all that lived.?" and we answer here is
1 See Appendix XXXIX.

37^ Anti-TJieistic Theories.

pantheism : but what he really is, or even in the
main is, it is almost impossible to ascertain. The
theism, I fear, is a mere semblance, and " Our
Father in heaven" on his lips merely equivalent
to " Our Father the abyss," to whom he assures
us that "we feel ourselves to be in mysterious
affinity." The true state of his mind, if we may
venture to say so, appears to be one of perpetual
oscillation between atheism and pantheism — be-
tween a God who is merely " the category of the
ideal" and a God who is a blind but mighty
fatality, labouring to bring forth by a slow and
painful self-evolution an absolute intelligence — a
man- God, in whose consciousness the thoughts
and feehngs of all the generations of humanity
may be comprehended.

The ablest attempt which has been made in
France in the present day to substitute for the
ordinary idea of God one derived from the prin-
ciples of idealism, is that of M. Vacherot in
his 'Metaphysics and Science.' With all his
speculative enthusiasm and talent, however, he
has only reached the poor result that God must
be regarded as the ideal of the reason, as ab-
stract but not real being, as what exists only by
thought and for thought. We can scarcely call
this pantheism, because, instead of implying that
God is the source, substance, and explanation of
the universe, it supposes that He is the source,

Recent PantJicisni. 379

substance, and explanation of nothing- — existing
merely as a notion.^

In our English speech pantheism has been sung
by Shelley, preached by Emerson, and recom-
mended in loose rhetorical fashion by various
writers, but it has not yet been presented in the
form of a carefully reasoned theory. ^

1 See Appendix XL. 2 gge Appendix XLl.

3^0 Anti-Theistic Theories.

LECTURE X.

PANTHEISM.

When we observe how widespread pantheism is,
and has always been, we are naturally led to ask,
Why has it proved so attractive ? The considera-
tion of this question may be combined with that
of another equally important : Does it deserve to
be as attractive as it has actually proved to be ?
These are the two questions which I shall keep
before me in the present lecture. While endeav-
ouring so far to answer both, I shall consider them,
as I have just indicated, not apart, but in connec-
tion. Thus viewed they are practically equivalent
to the single question. What are the real and ap-
parent merits and defects of pantheism t

Let us, in the first place, seek an answer by
judging of pantheism as a response to the purely
and properly religious wants of human nature.

Pantheism in relation to Religion. 38 1

Now, obviously, pantheism is in this reference
incomparably superior to atheism. In every form
it gives some answer to our religious cravings. In
every form atheism gives lione. Pantheism always
presents at least a little sustenance for the spirit,
and sometimes a comparatively rich supply. Athe-
ism yields nothing whatever which can satisfy the
higher appetites of a human being. It pronounces
everything a vanity except what is finite and fleet-
ing. It is most natural, therefore, that the general
mind and heart of humanity should never have
hesitated when the alternative presented to it was
pantheism or atheism to prefer the former.

Then pantheism has a decided advantage over
polytheism in virtue of its emphatic afifirmation of
the unity and infinity of God. It responds, in con-
sequence, to imperative demands of reason which
polytheism contradicts. Hence while the human
mind has always found itself compelled, as soon as
it began to philosophise, either to assail polythe-
istic beliefs or to interpret them in a way which
changes their entire character, it has, on the con-
trary, been always led by speculation to adopt
pantheistic tenets. It is just when polytheism be-
gins to pass into pantheism that philosophy makes
its appearance ; and, in fact, it is the philosophy
which accounts for the transition. Further, pan-
theism has the power of rendering polytheism sub-
servient to its advancement. It can provide it with

382 Anti-Theistic Theories.

a basis of intellectual principles ; it can devise
plausible reasons even for its most extravagant
details; it can make itself indispensable to it;
and by doing so it can secure the assistance of
all the forces of faith and superstition possessed
by polytheism. This may be a source of enor-
mous influence, as the example of India con-
vincingly shows.

Further, pantheism has a certain marked supe-
riority over every doctrine or system which leads
men to think of creation as independent of the
Creator, or of God as withdrawn from His crea-
tures. Where theism has degenerated into deism,
or Christianity into a mere intellectual creed, it is
not unnatural that pantheism should prevail. In
such a case its spread may serve a providential
purpose as a counterpoise to the opposite extreme
of error. It is the expression of a sense of a Divine
presence in the universe. It insists on the all-per-
vading activity of God. It is belief in Him as
One

*' Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, which impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. "

In the possession of this truth it has nothing
which a true theism, such as we find in the Bible,

Pantheism in relation to Religion. 383

has not also, but it has a truth which the human
soul needs, which theists have often not prized
enough, and which many professed theists have
virtually forgotten altogether.

Pantheism likewise ministers in some degree to
devout emotion and affection by centring all in, and
even by sacrificing all to, the one absolute Exist-
ence. It teaches men to rise both above the good
and the evil of the visible and temporal world, and
to yearn after eternal rest in the world of immu-
table being. It teaches them to sacrifice egotism
and to glory in being parts and particles of God.
That many minds can find a certain satisfaction
and strength in this teaching the wide prevalence
of pantheism in religion abundantly proves. It
pervades all Hindu religion, and elicits and sus-
tains in many a Hindu mind a piety which concen-
trates the thoughts and energies with such wonder
ful intensity and exclusiveness on eternity, that
time and the things of time appear only the delu-
sions of a dream. It has in every age of Christian
history presented itself either as the rival and op-
ponent of Christian doctrine, or with the claim to
be its highest and truest expression ; and many
great and elevated minds have been found to listen
to it, and to look to the absorption in the Infinite
which it promises as their highest good.

Pantheism, however, falls far short of giving such
satisfaction to the religious wants of man as a true

384 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

theism supplies. It does well to insist on the omni-
presence of God, and on the complete and ceaseless
dependence of the universe on His power. But all
true theism does the same. There is no pantheism
in the Bible, yet no book is more thoroughly per-
vaded and inspired by the thought that finite things
are not self-existent, nor self-sustained, nor self-
evolved, but that God is over all and in all, the
ground of existence, the source of life, the giver
of every good. This thought is implied on each
page. It is strikingly expressed in the words of
the Psalmist when he says, — " If I ascend up into
heaven. Thou art there : if I make my bed in
hell, behold. Thou art there. If I take the wings
of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea ; even there shall Thy hand lead me : "
of the prophet, — " Am I . God at hand, saith the
Lord, and not a God afar off.? Can any hide him-
self in secret places that I shall not see him.? saith
the Lord : do not I fill heaven and earth } saith
the Lord : " of the Apostle Paul, — " For in God we
live, and move, and have our being : " and of the
Apostle John, — " He that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God, and God in him." To call language of
this kind pantheistic has no warrant in reason, and
no other tendency than to mislead. The truth
that " of God, and through Him, and to Him, are
all things," is common to pantheism and theism,
and distinguishes both from deism. There is more,

PantJicisjii hi relation to Religion, 385

however, than this to be said. Pantheism is, in
fact, far from teaching the foil truth even as to
God's presence. It cannot consistently conceive
of it as a personal and spiritual, but only as a
natural and necessary, presence. It tells us that
God is in all that we see and touch and hear, — in
the light of day, the springing grass, and whisper-
ing breeze ; but it tells us too that the God who is
there is present only as substance, force, and law,
not as reason, love, and will. If so — if God is only
thus present to us in the elements and agencies
of nature, — His presence is, in reality, only their
presence. It adds nothing to their presence.
Were it withdrawn, if the things themselves ex-
isted, there would be no difference. Imagination
and poetry may endeavour to make something of
the distinction between the presence of a merely
impersonal God in nature and the mere presence
of nature, but I do not see how either reason or a
reasonable faith, either philosophy or religion, can
attach any importance to it. If the God who is in
the sunbeam can only be present as its light and
heat, the sunbeam without God must be equivalent
to the sunbeam with God. Only when God is felt
to be the creative and legislative Reason — the
supreme Will, free, righteous, and loving, — can His
presence in the objects and processes of nature
acquire a real religious significance. If He is even
only so present in ourselves that there is no dis-
2 B

386 AntiTJieistic TJieories.

tinction between Him and us, between His power
and our power, His presence with us is not dis-
tinguishable from His absence from us. Another
sort of presence is needed before the soul can be
satisfied, — the presence of one spirit with another
spirit. Religion implies, undoubtedly, that we
realise God's presence with us ; but it equally im-
plies, what pantheism denies, that He is personally
distinct from us ; that He can have affection and
compassion towards us, and that we can love Him
with an unselfish love; that He can guide and
help us, and that we may trust Him as we can-
not trust ourselves ; and that we may fear Him as
one whom we can offend, and pray to Him as one
who can hear and answer us.

Religion supposes faith, love, hope ; but pan-
theism when it denies the personality of God re-
fuses to these affections an appropriate object. It
withholds from the view of the spirit what can
alone satisfy its best and deepest feelings. The
less of determinate personal character God is re-
garded as having, the less is it possible to love or
trust Him. When supposed to be wholly indeter-
minate and impersonal, no room at all is left for a
religion characterised by the personal affections.
To a necessarily self-evolving impersonal God —
whether conceived of as substance, identity, force,
law, process, or idea — the only worship which can
reasonably be offered is a cold, passionless resigna-

PantJicism in relation to Religion. 387

tion, which submits because it must, which bows
not to love but to power, and which looks forward
to the eternal loss of individual existence as the
inevitable destination of man. The soul craves for
union with God, and can have no healthy spirit-
ual life except through union with Him ; but the
value, and even possibility of such union must de-
pend not only on the disposition of man, but on
the character of God. Pantheism, however, would
divest God of character : it denies to Him self-
consciousness, fatherly love, providential care, re-
deeming mercy: under pretence of exalting Him
above all categories of thought and existence it
reduces Him to the level of dead things, of neces-
sary processes, of abstract ideas, or even to the
still lower level of the unknowable and non-ex-
istent ; and it thereby leaves no room for that
union with God in rational, pure, and holy love,
which is the only basis, the grand distinction, the
power, and the glory of true religion. It offers to
enable us to realise better than any other theory
the omnipresence of God, but it represents Him
as in reality inaccessible either to intelligence or
affection. It keeps the word of promise to the ear,
but breaks it to the heart.

History confirms what has just been said. It
shows that pantheism can only find room for a
religion of affectionate devotion by being untrue
to its distinctive principles. The more consistent

388 Anti-TJieistic TheoiHes.

it is, the less religious it is. In Brahminism and
Buddhism we perceive how a deep sense of the
evils of the present life, and a vivid fear of the evils
which may be endured in the future phases of
existence, may cause men to yearn intensely and
to labour earnestly for the extinction of person-
ality, or even for utter annihilation, but the ab-
solute Being of the one system and the absolute
Fate of the other are alike unloved. The mystical
piety of India, when strictly pantheistic, knows
nothing of the gratitude for Divine mercy and the
trust in Divine righteousness which characterise
evangelical piety. Instead of love and commun-
ion in love, it can only commend to us the con-
templation of an object which is incomprehen-
sible, devoid of all affections, and indifferent to
all actions. When feelings like love, gratitude,
and trust are expressed in the hymns and
prayers of Hindu worship, it is in consequence
of a virtual denial of the principles of pantheism ;
it is because the mind has consented to regard as
real what it had previously pronounced illusory,
and to personify what it had declared to be im-
personal. Hinduism holds it to be a fundamental
truth that the absolute Being can have no per-
sonal attributes, and yet it has not only to allow
but to encouracre its adherents to invest that Beinsf
with these attributes, in order that by thus tem-

PantJicism in relation to Religion. 389

porarily deluding themselves they may evoke in
their hearts at least a feeble and transient glow of
devotion. It has even been forced, by its inability
to elicit and sustain a religious life by what is
strictly pantheistic in its doctrine, to crave the help
of polytheism, and to treat the foulest orgies and
cruellest rites of idolatry as acts of reasonable wor-
ship paid indirectly to the sole and supreme Being.
It finds polytheism to be the indispensable supple-
ment of its pantheism. It is the personal gods of
Hindu polytheism, and not the impersonal principle
of Hindu pantheism, that the Hindu people wor-
ship. No people can worship what they believe
to be entirely impersonal. Even in the so-called
religions of nature the deified natural powers are
alv/ays personified. It is only as persons that
they are offered prayers and sacrifices. In lands
where polytheism has been destroyed the pantheist
still finds himself unable to worship mere indeter-
minate Being, and hence he becomes a worshipper
either of humanity in general or of the individuals
whom he regards as heroes. He can only conceive
of his God as having reality in the progress of the
human race or in the souls of great men. Says
one of our modern pantheists, " The universal does
not attract us until housed in an individual. Who
heeds the waste abyss of possibilities } The ocean
is everywhere the same, but it has no character

390 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

unless seen with the shore or the ship." In so
far as pantheists, Hegel and Cousin, Carlyle and
Emerson, are also hero -worshippers, man -wor-
shippers.

I have said that the ability of pantheism to ally
itself with polytheism accounts for its prevalence
in certain lands ; but I must add that, although a
power, this ability is not a merit. It is a power for
evil — a power which sustains superstition, corrupts
the system which possesses it, deludes and de-
grades the human mind and heart, and arrests
social progress. Educated Hindus are often found
to represent it as an excellence of Brahminism,
that it not only tolerates but embraces and incor-
porates the lower phases of religion. They con-
tend that it thereby elevates and purifies poly-
theism, and helps the minds of men to pass from
the lowest stage of religious development grad-
ually up to the highest. The opinion may seem
plausible, but neither reason nor experience con-
firms it. Pantheism can give support to poly-
theism, and receive support from it, but only at
the cost of sacrificing all its claims to be a rational
system, and of losing such moral virtue as it pos-
sesses. If it look upon the popular deities as mere
fictions of the popular mind, its association with
polytheism can only mean a conscious alliance
with falsehood, the deliberate propagation of lies,
a persistent career of hypocrisy. If, on the other

PantJicisiii in relation to Religion. 391

hand, it regard them as really manifestations of
the absolute Being, it must believe this on the
authority of revelation or tradition, for it is impos-
sible to pretend that their existence and the reality
of their exploits can be proved by reason. But in
this case .pantheism manifestly ceases to have any
title to rationality. Instead of showing itself to
be a system explanatory of facts, it convicts itself
of being a device to give plausibility to fables.
Whatever can account for what is false as easily
as for what is true, cannot really account for what
is true. Then, as to the testimony of experience,
India alone is surely sufficient proof that the union
of pantheism with polytheism does not correct but
stimulate the extravagances of the latter. Pan-
theism, instead of elevating and purifying Hindu
polytheism, has contributed to increase the number,
the absurdity, and the foulness of its superstitions.
While in India pantheism has allied itself to
polytheism, in Germany it has often professed to
accept even the most distinctive doctrines of Chris-
tianity. Many followers of Hegel have claimed
to find in the mysteries of faith the profoundest
speculative truths, while utterly rejecting and de-
spising them as presented in Scripture and by the
Church. They have talked of the Father, the Son,
and the Spirit; of the incarnation and atonement;
of the Word and sacraments ; of the resurrection
and eternal life, — as if they were sincere and fer-

392 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

vent believers, and yet have been virtually atheists.
The form of pantheism which they have adopted
has enabled them to present their anti-religious
negations in the language which had been appro-
priated to the expression of positive Christian
tenets. It has allowed them, while discarding
sacred things, to retain sacred names and vener-
ated formulas. Now, undoubtedly, pantheism in
Germany has owed much of its success to this
power of assuming the aspect of the system to
which it is most opposed. Through availing itself
thereof it has not only commended its doctrines to
some who would have been shocked by them if they
had been presented without disguise, but it has
been able to work an amount of harm which it
could never otherwise have done, by substituting
for the principles of the Gospel dogmas nominally
the same but really as different as darkness from
light or poison from food. But, again, it must
be said that power is by no means identical with
merit. Satan is only the more dangerous because
he can take the form of an angel of light ; and he is
none the worthier of our esteem when he presents
himself in this character. So pantheism will re-
ceive no credit either from truly intelligent or
scrupulously honest men because of its power of
seeming to be what it is not, and of explaining
away or perverting what it professes to interpret
and confirm.

PantJicisin in relation to Religion. 393

I have admitted that pantheism, judged of from
a religious point of view, ranks high above atheism.
I am entitled, yea, bound, to add that it is very-
apt to sink down to the same low level. It has
often been observed that it has throughout its
whole history vacillated between atheism — the
denial that there is really a God, — and acosmism —
the denial that there is really a world. The reason
is obvious. It can only defend its claim to have
reached the knowledge of absolute unity by virtu-
ally suppressing either the infinite or the finite —
by representing either nature as an illusion or God
as an abstraction. This truth has been so convinc-
ingly established by M. Saisset that it would be a
waste of labour to dwell upon it. Dr Liddon has
presented it concisely in these words : " In con-
ceiving of God, the choice before a pantheist lies
between alternatives from which no genius has
as yet devised a real escape. God, the panthe-
ist must assert, is literally everything ; God is
the whole material and spiritual universe ; He
is humanity in all its manifestations ; He is by
inclusion every moral and immoral agent ; and
every form and exaggeration of moral evil, no
less than every variety of moral excellence and
beauty, is part of the all- pervading, all-compre-
hending movement of His universal life. If this
revolting blasphemy be declined, then the God
of pantheism must be the barest abstraction of

394 Anti-Theistic Theories.

abstract being ; He must, as with the Alexandrian
thinkers, be so exaggerated an abstraction as to
transcend existence itself; He must be conceived
of as utterly unreal, lifeless, non-existent ; while
the only real beings are those finite and deter-
minate forms of existence whereof 'nature' is
composed. This dilemma haunts all the histori-
cal transformations of pantheism, in Europe as
in the East, to-day as two thousand years ago.
Pantheism must either assert that its God is the
one only existing being whose existence absorbs
and is identified with the universe and humanity;
or else it must admit that He is the rarest and
most unreal of conceivable abstractions ; in plain
terms, that He is no being at all."^ If pantheism
must thus sacrifice, however, either the infinite to
the finite or the finite to the infinite — either God
to nature or nature to God — it is not difficult to
see which will be in greatest danger of being
surrendered. Profoundly speculative and deeply
devotional minds may refuse on any account to
abandon their faith in the infinite, and be content
to sacrifice the existence of the worlds of sense
and consciousness ; but ordinary minds will as-
suredly never be able to persuade themselves that
all finite things, themselves included, are mere
illusions and nonentities, and will, consequently,
confound God with the universe — thereby resolv-

^ Bampton Lectures for 1866— Svo ed., pp. 448, 449.

PantJieism in relation to Morality. 395

ing God as distinguished from nature into a mere
notion or name.

Religion and morality are so allied, that when
we treat of the relation of pantheism to one of
them, we cannot leave wholly out of consideration
its relation also to the other. In fact, it is pre-
cisely in its non-recognition of the moral relations
on which the communion of sinful man with a holy
God ought to rest that pantheism most signally
fails as a religion. Through its blindness to the
holiness of God and the sinfulness of man it can
only elicit and sustain a piety which is exclusive
of morality. It allows, yea, leads, its votaries to
believe that they can be religious without caring
to be righteous. It implies that all self-accusa-
tion is self-deception, since the worst passions and
vilest actions of humanity are states and opera-
tions of the One Absolute Being. Man cannot be
justly held responsible for what truly belongs to
God — for affections or deeds which are necessarily
manifestations of the Divine nature. This charac-
teristic of pantheism has doubtless been to many
an attraction. It is only too natural that those
who love sin should not desire to have to do with
a God who hates it. Piety without morality can-
not fail to please many better than a piety which
is inclusive of morality. But such a piety can
never truly satisfy a living and awakened soul.
Conscience is an ineradicable principle of the

39^ Anti-Theistic Theories.

human spirit ; it is even the highest principle of
the human spirit, because it testifies to the exist-
ence and presence of a law which is the expression
of a supremely high and holy nature. There is
no principle to which religion is more bound to
conform and yield satisfaction, yet pantheism con-
tradicts its most sacred and certain convictions,
and directly tends to eradicate and destroy it.

Yes, pantheism is not only an inadequate reli-
gion, but it strikes at the very roots of morality,
and strives to set aside its fundamental postulates.
Man feels himself a free agent and responsible for
his conduct. He recognises an order or law which
impresses him as sacred, and he has a conviction
that he can either bring his life into harmony with
it or war against it. He acknowledges obligations
and rights; he experiences the joys of an approv-
ing conscience, and the bitterness of remorse. The
pantheist is a man, and these convictions and feel-
ings are known to him as well as to other men ;
and he may, as many pantheists do, try earnestly
to retain them, to do justice to them, to incor-
porate them into his system. But the task is
a hopeless one. If evil be no less necessary or
divine than good, evil must be but good in an-
other way we are not skilled in, and neither God
nor man can reasonably condemn it. If human
personality and freedom are illusions, then must
obligation, guilt and retribution be the absurdest

PantJieisni in relation to Morality. 397

fictions. In a word, from pantheistic premisses
we can only legitimately infer that ** whatever is,
is right," or that " might is right."

Pantheists who have had any regard to logic
have never been able to reach other conclusions.
The advocates of the Vedanta doctrine teach that
sin is neither real in itself nor capable of reaching
to what is real in man ; that it is but a creation of
ignorance ; that " though the soul plunge itself in
sin, like a sword in water, it shall in no wise cling
to it;" that the distinctions of right and wrong are
mere appearances which will vanish as soon as the
dream -state of life is dispelled. The beautiful
Bhagavad • Gita distinctly teaches that what are
called right actions and wrong actions are alike
to God; that He may be served with evil as well
as with good. It may be said that Stoicism,
although a form of pantheism, was sublimely
moral — a system which inspired and moulded
heroic natures and nourished the noblest virtues.
But it must be borne in mind that the entire
morality of Stoicism rested on affirmations which
no Stoic ever made even a serious attempt to
reconcile either with the unity of existence or the
fatalism of events. Stoic morality was rooted in
the belief that reason and righteousness ruled the
universe, and, above all, in the conviction that the
will is outside of the sphere of fate — that it is free ;
that man is the absolute lord of his own actions ;

398 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

that the soul is essentially above fate, and equal
to Jove himself. Stoicism escaped the moral con-
sequences of its pantheism only by disregarding
speculative consistency, and asserting the most
manifest contradictions with truly Roman au-
dacity. Pass to Spinoza. He had the merit of
at least making desperate efforts to attain con-
sistency. What sort of moral creed, then, did. he
deduce from pantheistic principles } One which
almost looks as if it had been the joint production
of a Thomas a Kempis and a Thomas Hobbes,
containing, as it does, along with a rule of life
which is rather too good for saints so long as
they are in the flesh, another which is only fol-
lowed by the brutes. Spinoza was a naturally
noble-minded man, and so he taught that virtue
is the intellectual love of God ; but he was also a
pantheist and a reasoner, and therefore he taught,
too, that the measure of man's right is his power
and appetite ; that the best right is that of the
strongest. In like manner, whenever Hegelian
pantheism has been fully thought out and clearly
expressed, evil has been maintained to be essential
to the self-manifestation of God and necessarily
involved in the existence of good, might has been
proclaimed to be right, success has been held to
be its own sufficient justification, war has been de-
fended on immoral grounds, and personal liberties
have been despised. The whole history of panthe-

Pantheism in relation to Morality. 399

ism, in fact, teaches that no true system of ethics
or poHtics can be based on a pantheistic founda-
tion ; that neither individuals nor societies can
derive a healthy moral life from a pantheistic
source.

Von Hartmann, in a celebrated but superficial
book on the Religion of the Future, has asserted
that theism is inconsistent with morality, since
there can be no moral worth in the obedience of
the will to any law which is not of its own making ;
and that pantheism is the true basis of morality,
since it alone enables us to conceive of the will as
its own law. Such statements show great want
both of insight and reflection. If the will did give
itself a law, its obedience to that law would be mor-
ally worthless. It cannot be reasonably imagined
to be morally bound to obey a law which it has it-
self created, or, indeed, to be morally bound at all,
unless under a law which is not of its own making.
The will is not its own law, and cannot even be
conceived of as its own law. To identify the will
and its law is to confound entirely distinct things.
For the will to rule the will, it would need at once
to command and to obey, to be bond and free, de-
pendent and independent. To be its own rule were
for it the same as to be without rule. Besides,
nothing can be more obvious than that pantheism
does not allow us to conceive of the will as deter-
mining itself, as giving itself a law, or being a law

400 Aiiti'TJieisiic Theories,

to itself. It makes it, on the contrary, impossible
for us consistently to believe in any real self-deter-
mination or self-control as beloncrinof to the will.
Pantheism leaves no possibility of the existence of
will properly so called. Let it be granted that
there is true will in God or man, and pantheism
cannot be maintained to be a rational theory of the
universe.

It is more plausible — more correct even — to
argue that pantheism ministers moral strength to
men by teaching them to realise that God worketh
in them and through them. By inculcating its
doctrine of the immanence of God in all human
thought and action, while at the same time espe-
cially insisting on the achievements of power and
genius as the manifestations of the Divine agency,
it has gained for itself a sympathy and exerted an
influence which are far from inconsiderable. The
conqueror, the philosopher, the poet, feels him-
self borne upwards, as it were, and along a path
of glory and success, by the force of an indwelling
God. The hours of highest achievement and joy
are those in which man is frequently least con-
scious of his weaknesses and limitations as a man,
and most prone to identify himself with God. Pan-
theism may give strength both for endurance and
action, although it is more closely connected with
the pride of power than with power itself It does
nothing, however, in a moral respect which a true

Pantheism in relation to Morality. 401

theism does not accomplish in a wiser and more
efficacious way. Such a theism as that which
underlies Christianity tells us that we may have
strength from God for all our work if we only seek
for it ; that God is well pleased to work in every
humble heart both to will and to do; and, at the
same time, it does not tell us, like pantheism, that
whatever we will and do is His willing and doing ;
that whether we pray or refrain from prayer, our
work will be His w^ork. It teaches us to trust in
God for all good gifts and for grace to perform all
good works ; while it does not, like pantheism,
make this great lesson of none effect by destroying
the distinction between good and evil, — between
dwelling in God and living in sin, — between being
filled with the spirit of God and filled wdth ambi-
tion or pride or lust.

The distinction of good and evil, then, like the
reality of a power of self-determination, is a barrier
to pantheism. A plain man who holds fast to what
his conscience testifies as to the opposition of
right and wrong, will always have an adequate
argument in hand against a self- consistent and
thorough pantheism. For pantheism would oblit-
erate the distinction between them, or make evil
the mere absence of good or a lesser good. It
cannot allow that moral good and evil are in direct
and positive antagonism. It is bound to maintain
that the one involves the other, and that both are
2 C

402 Anti-TIieistic Theories.

needed to complete a whole. It sees in their op-
position only an instance of the dualism so abun-
dantly exemplified by the polarities of nature, —
by action and reaction, darkness and light, heat
and cold, male and female, motion and rest, matter
and spirit. But who that faithfully adheres to the
testimony of conscience can be deceived by such a
view ? Must a man not be already blind to the
difference between right and wrong who does not
regard with profound distrust every assertion or
insinuation to the effect that they are alike neces-
sary, alike essential to the order and harmony of
the universe ? Will he not demand rigid proof for
every assertion or insinuation of the kind ? If he
demand it, he will certainly not obtain it. It is
easy to show that there is a rational and harmon-
ious connection between light and darkness, heat
and cold, and all the other so-called polarities of
nature ; that they come from the same mind, be-
long to the same system, and work together to the
same end ; that their conflicts are only apparent,
while their co-operation is real. But no man has
ever proved that truth and falsehood, virtue and
vice, are similarly connected. Many have asserted
it. None, however, have produced other evidence
for it than illusory analogies, or deductions from
false premisses. Conscience pronounces sin that
which is not necessary — that which ought not to
be. Reason declares it unreasonable, and finds

Pantheism in relation to AistJictic Enjoynient. 403

that it is never in and of itself a means to good,
whatever good may spring from opposition to it.
Right and wrong are absolutely exclusive of each
other. There can be no compromise between them,
or reconciliation of them. They cannot blend and
merge into any common higher result. The one
can only be satisfied by the annihilation of the
other. All this pantheism is logically necessitated
to deny, but in so doing dashes itself against a
rock.

I might now proceed to consider the moral char-
acter of the optimism, the historical fatalism, the
glorification of war, the hero-worship, and the con-
tempt for weakness, poverty, and suffering virtue,
which pantheism generates ; but I have elsewhere
done this so fully,^ that I shall leave this part of
my subject without further remark, and pass from
where the dogma we are examining is weakest to
where it is, perhaps, strongest.

It has often been observed that pantheism exer-\
cises a special attraction over aesthetic and artistic
natures. It appeals more effectively to the emo-
tional susceptibility than to the conscience. For
while it refrains from representing God as a moral
personality, it exults in describing Him as a plastic
force which fills the universe with forms of beauty
and s;randeur, — the

^Philosophy of History in France and Germany, pp. 1S9-206.

404 Anti-Theistic Theoj'ies.

"Eternal spring
Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene
That floats before our eyes in wavering light."

Now there are many minds in which the sense of
beauty is stronger than the conviction of obhga-
tion, — which are more pained by the contempla-
tion of aesthetic deformity than of moral evil, —
which are repelled by the thought of God as a
Governor and Judge, yet attracted by the thought
of Him as the

*' Soul of those mighty spheres
Whose changeless paths thro' heaven's deep silence lies ;
Soul of that smallest being,
The dwelling of whose life
Is one faint April sun-gleam."

It is quite natural that such minds should be taken
captive by a system which does not disturb them
with admonitions about sin and retribution, pardon
and grace, and holiness ; but which, while adding
to their interest in nature and human life, allows
them to rest in the admiration of beauty as devo-
tion to God. This is not, however, because the
sense of beauty misleads in itself, or is in excess
even in those who are thus deceived. The explan-
ation of their fall is no excellence, but a defect. It
is not because of the vividness and susceptibihty
of their aesthetic sympathies that those to whom I
refer become pantheists, and adore a God who has

Pa? I theism in relation to ^Esthetic Enjoyment. 405

life and activity but no moral attributes ; it is be-
cause of the comparative feebleness and deadness
of their moral principles. It is not because their
sense of beauty is too strong, and they are exqui-
sitely alive to the charms of nature ; but because
their sense of duty is too weak, and they are
strangely insensible to the hatefulness of sin and
to the claims of righteousness. It is because their
minds are one-sided and ill-balanced, and especially
because reverence for holiness is not, as it ought to
be, the central conviction of their souls. There
can be, I need scarcely say, no true piety which
rests on sympathy with the beautiful to the exclu-
sion of reverence for moral excellence, or even in
which aesthetic emotions are not subordinated to
moral convictions. A being like man, who lives
continually under moral law, cannot safely luxu-
riate in a mere religion of beauty.

But while this is to be kept in mind, it must also
be maintained that theism, rightly apprehended,
can sustain and satisfy all sensibilities to beauty
not only as well as pantheism, but much better.
It fully recognises the truth in virtue of which
pantheism attracts aesthetic natures, although it
recognises other truths as of still greater moment.
Its acknowledgment of God as a personal moral
Governor and Judge does not prevent its also ac-
knowledging that He creates with plastic hand all
lovely things, adorns even the desert flower, born

4o6 Anti-Theisiic Theories.

to blush unseen by any eye but His own, and
elaborately moulds and delicately tints even the
tiniest creatures in the depths of the ocean, be-
cause His own character spontaneously impels
Him to make His works beautiful, and divinely to
rejoice over what is beautiful. When poetry rep-
resents God as present and operative in nature
— wheeling the silent spheres, shining in the sun,
hurling the tempest forth, feeding and guiding His
creatures, or speaking in the reason and conscience
of man — some are ready to pronounce it panthe-
istic. They are not, however, to be commended
or imitated. It is not pantheism to show forth the
omnipresence of God." To say that it is, is to do
gross injustice to theism. Only a theism falsely
so called will refuse cordially to endorse whatever
language merely helps us to realise that God fills
and pervades His creation, and that in Him it lives
and moves, and has its being. We must take
some other view of pantheism than one which
would compel us to include the psalmists and
prophets of Israel, Christ and His apostles and
their followers in all ages, among its expositors
and adherents.

All the power, then, which pantheism possesses
to satisfy the aesthetic capacities of man, theism
also possesses. But it possesses far more. Behind
nature it shows us not only a plastic force, but a
perfect spirit. And this should increase our en-

Panthcisvi in relation to ^stJictic Enjoyment. 407

joyment of nature — even of mere physical nature
— which is beautiful to us in proportion as we per-
ceive in it reflections of the graces of spirit. Physi-
cal things must be all the more sublime and fair
for disclosing to the mind the majesty, the love,
and tenderness of a perfect spirit. It is only in
such a spirit that the mind can perceive an ideal
of spiritual beauty. A perfectly holy spirit must
be a perfectly beautiful spirit, and the system
which presents to us an infinite spirit, perfect in
all holy beauties, can alone completely satisfy the
aesthetic mind. It necessarily and directly re-
sponds to the aesthetic no less than to the moral
nature of men. It may call its disciples to work,
indeed, rather than to enjoy, but the work which it
prescribes is to realise a perfect ideal. It teaches
to yearn for that beauty of universal holiness of
which material beauty is but the shadow. The
God of pantheism is no spiritual ideal, and .can
demand from worshippers no spiritually ideal life.
Further, pantheism, it seems to me, has a nat-
ural tendency to vitiate and destroy art by de-
priving it of a moral basis and moral motives. I
admit that, in so far as it is antagonistic to atheism,
or deism, or even a merely scholastic theism, it
fosters art. Probably in all ages in which art has
flourished the pantheistic spirit has been more or
less influential. Yet it appears obvious that the
decided predominance of pantheism, and still more

408 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

its exclusive sway, would be as fatal to art as
even atheism or deism. It would lead straight to
belief in the moral indifference of art, and would
favour the rise and spread of merely naturalistic or
sensuous schools of poetry and painting. It could
not sustain the faith to which art owes its highest
achievements, and which can alone maintain it in
the vigour of perennial youth — the faith that
** earth fills her lap with treasures not her own," —
that there is no pathos equal to that of moral con-
flict, and no sublimity equal to that of moral
achievement, — that natural beauties are suggestive
of spiritual perfections. Were our poets to breathe
no finer ether than that which pantheism supplies,
they might for a time give us songs of luscious
sweetness and intoxicating delight, but the inevit-
able foulness of corruption would appear at length.
It is of singers who have been inspired from a
loftier and purer source that m.en will say —

" Blessings be on them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares —
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays."

Would pantheism not lead painters into such an
aesthetic and ethical heresy as that their highest
achievements were to be won through the repre-
sentation of mere nature, or even of mere nudity }
And were any such heresy to become general ;
were our painters not to remember that they have

PantJteisin in relation to Philosophy. 409

higher work to do than to portray the unripe
graces of a Cupid, or the sensuous charms of a
Venus ; should they fail to realise that to become
truly great in their profession they must be able
to understand and interpret what is spiritually and
morally significant, and that, consequently, they
must possess, along with other gifts, the power of
spiritual and moral vision, — then, assuredly, the
painter's noble art would soon become degraded
in the unworthy hands of those who professed to
cultivate it.

II.

We have now seen how pantheism is related to
religion, to morality, and to art. Let us further
consider how it is related to thought itself, or to
what is called philosophy, — i.e., thought at its best
— the highest thought on the highest themes.

Pantheism has always exerted a powerful attrac-
tion on speculative intellects. It has drawn not a
few of the ablest of them closely and entirely to
itself. The secret of Its power over them is not
difficult to discover. Pantheism professes to have
reached what philosophy aspires to attain. It
claims to know and to make known the one prin-
ciple from which all dependent existence is logi-
cally and necessarily derived, — the one principle to
know which is to know everything. It pretends

410 Anti-Theistic Theories.

to have reached an absolute unity from which it
can show how the entire worlds of existence and of
knowledge have been evolved. Now all philosophy
strives after unity. It is its aim, its task, to reduce
complexity to simplicity, the many to the one. It
is not to be wondered at if it should often imagine
that its dream has been realised ; if it should be
ready to believe that its desires have been fulfilled.
The search after absolute knowledge has ended
with many in their acquiescence in some form of
pantheism. The search itself is inevitable, for its
cause lies in the very nature of knowledge. It has
been truly enough said that " to know is to limit ; "
and yet nothing is more characteristic of know-
ledge than that it is impossible to assign to it any
external or objective limits. There are few propo-
sitions, perhaps, which more need to be thought-
fully appreciated than just this, — The only ascei^-
tainable limitations of reason in the investigation
of truth a7'e those whieh are inherent in its own
constitution. Reason has its limits in its own
laws. It is the business of psychology and logic
to discover what these laws are. When they are
known the powers of reason are known, because
, reason can never claim to be irrational. It is use-
less, however, to attempt to mark off the external
or objective boundaries of rational research ; use-
less to attempt to draw a line in the outward uni-
verse, beyond which all will be a terra incognita,

PantJicisiii in relation to PJiilosopJiy. 411

and within which all is explicable. There is ab-
surdity— self-contradiction — in the very attempt.
To draw a line separating the knowable from the
unknowable we must have already done what we
affirm to be impossible, — known the unknowable.
We cannot draw a boundary unless we see over it.
There can be no within for us where there is no
without. We can set no limit to anything if we
know that there is nothing beyond it. We cannot
say that any fact or doctrine whatever is in itself,
or in its own nature, unknowable ; because to have
a right to say this we should require to know it in
itself or in its own nature ; and if we could know
it thus, it manifestly could not be unknowable.
There can, in fact, be nothing unknowable in itself,
— nothing unknowable for reason in itself. There
can be no other unknowable for reason than the
irrational or self-contradictory — which is to say,
there is nothing really unknowable, since the
irrational or self-contradictory is known as that
in wdiich there is nothing to know. Thus in
all knowledge there is not only limitation, but
comprehension of what is within, and apprehen-
sion of what is without, the limit. And the appre-
hension which transcends limitation while imply-
ing it, can never be absorbed into or exhausted by
the comprehension which is defined by limitation
while implying the unlimited. The apprehension
of the unlimited, thus accompanying, in every act

412 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories.

of knowledge, the comprehension of the limited,
forces on the mind at every moment the conscious-
ness that beyond the little which we comprehend
there is ahvays more to be comprehended. A con-
sciousness, generally unreflective, of the relation-
ship of the finite to the infinite, as thus implied in
the very nature of knowledge, is the profoundest
and most powerful stimulus to the continuous and
indefinite progress of knowledge. But is there any
wonder that it should, in certain minds, lead not
only to progress, but to discontent with such pro-
gress as they find themselves capable of making .''
To feel one's self at every step as if in contact with
the infinite, and yet to be able to grasp only some
small fragment of the finite ; to be always haunted
by the absolute, yet always to come clearly face to
face merely with the relative ; to pursue what one
never exactly reaches ; to find that in no direc-
tion has our labour an assignable end, — is apt to
become painful, and especially painful to those who
are most given to reflection, and most possessed by
the craving for truth. What can be more natural
than that some of those who thus suffer should not
only seek relief by endeavouring to attain to a dis-
tinct and independent knowledge of the absolute
and unconditional ground of all derivative exist-
ences and secondary truths, but succeed in per-
suading themselves that they had found both this
relief and this knowledge t There will always be

PantJicism in relation to PJiilosopJiy. 413

some to whom the hope of an absolute science,
such as pantheism promises, will be the most se-
ductive that can be presented.

If this hope had been less seductive — if the pro-
mise, "Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods," had not been to certain minds a very
powerful temptation, — the essential futility of pan-
theism must have been long ago recognised. Un-
less strongly biassed in its favour, men could not
have failed to see that it is as little fitted to satisfy
the intellect as to satisfy the heart and conscience.
History of itself would have shown them this. It
exhibits pantheism as bearing on its very face the
most suspicious marks of illegitimacy. For pan-
theism has appeared only in a succession of dis-
connected, or very loosely connected, systems,
which do not supplement, but contradict, one
another. In all its purer and more self-consistent
forms it has been no more than the private doc-
trine of some individual philosopher, or of a little
school of persons who have consented to accept
him as an authority. No school of the kind has
flourished long, owing to the arbitrariness and in
coherence characteristic of all pantheistic creeds.
What a contrast does pantheism present in this
respect to theism, the history of which is a single,
uninterrupted, ever - progressive, ever - expanding
movement ! Pantheism is a sporadic and con-
tracted phenomenon ; theism is permanent and

4H Anti-Theistic Theories,

comprehensive. The former has at particular sea-
sons given satisfaction for a short time to individ-
uals and parties ; the latter has been an unfailing
strength and joy to all classes of men in all ages.

It is not difficult to perceive reasons why pan-
theism should not have been more to humanity
than what history shows it to have been. It is
because it has radical defects, which bring it into
necessary conflict with reason. It goes fatally
astray at the very outset. The absolute unity
which it seeks is a mere delusion, a mere dream.
There is no path either to it or from it. The
absolute unity as conceived of by pantheism
is something entirely indeterminate — something
which has no distinctive characteristics, and of
which, prior to its self- manifestation or develop-
ment, nothing can be definitely affirmed or denied
— yet which, by an inherent necessity, progres-
sively determines itself, and evolves out of itself
all distinctions and all definite objects, so as to
constitute the whole universe of being and thought,
the infinite and the finite, the necessary and the
contingent, the material and the spiritual. But
this unity is a mere idol of the mind. Belief in it
is intellectual idolatry. The hope of ever reaching
it is consummate folly.

The absolute unity of pantheism has been con-
ceived of in all sorts of ways, but, no matter how
conceived of, diversity, multiplicity, the actual uni-

Pantheism in relation to PJiilosophy. 415

verse as we know it, has ever been derived from it
only by surreptitiously dealing with it as if it were
the opposite of what it is pretended to be — as if it
were not absolutely one, but, on the contrary, as
multiple and complex as what is deduced from it.
And it could not be otherwise, because from ab-
solute unity nothing but absolute unity can come,
or rather absolutely nothing can come.

There are pantheists who have sought absolute
unity in a material principle, and who have con-
structed systems of what is called materialistic
pantheism. Such pantheism is essentially identi-
cal with materialism ; and every objection which
applies to materialism at all tells against it in the
form of materialistic pantheism. Order, life, mind,
and morality are all facts as unexplained by mate-
rialism when professing to be monism as when
confessing itself to be multitudinism. For it is the
profession which is erroneous, and the confession
which is correct. Unity can never be reached by
materialistic pantheism, nor can variety ever be
explained by it. For — as I had occasion to insist
when discussing materialism — there is no real one-
ness known, or even conceivable, in matter. The
purest physical element is no real unity, but a
plurality or aggregation of parts, each of which is
as much a unity as the whole. Every particle of
the purest physical element is distinct from every
other. And no single absolutely pure physical

41 6 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

element can be imagined as producing an element
different in kind from itself. Such production
would be absolute creation, and creation without a
cause. Further, matter absolutely one must be
matter which is entirely indeterminate. But there
is no evidence for the existence of such matter.
The only reasons ever produced for belief in its
existence have been worthless metaphysical sub-
tilties. And if it did exist, it would explain
exceedingly little. Far from accounting for
or dispensing with mind, it would at every step
imply and demand it. Plato and Aristotle con-
vinced themselves that the material universe must
have an uncreated basis, called by the former
" nurse " and " receptacle," and by the latter
"first-timber" and "the underlying;" but both
had the perspicacity to see that such ultimate
matter could at the most be merely a condition
and possibility of things; that it must receive
reality, forms, and attributes from an eternal and
active Reason ; that to suppose it to give rise to
definite objects and organisms, and finally to gen-
erate intelligence, was an opinion which no thought-
ful mind could entertain.

There are pantheists who have sought the abso-
lute unity in physical force, and who have con-
structed systems of dynamical pantheism. They,
too, have searched and laboured in vain. Mere
force is as unintelligible as mere matter. Is there

PantJicisDi in relation to Philosophy. 417

a force which is the force of no being or thing ?
If there is not, clearly the absolute cannot be in
mere force ; and I am not aware that any person
has shown that there is — that there can be action
without an agent. And if it were proved, absolute
unity would be far from reached. Every physical
force is necessarily divisible force, and has, there-
fore, no strict essential unity. And a physical
force strictly one in kind can no more produce
diversity than can a single physical element. It
may be supposed to have a law within it necessi-
tating action, and that law must be in it all, and
must necessitate everywhere the same action, a
dreary monotony of change, out of which no
variety can come.

There are pantheists who have conceived of the
absolute unity under the similitude of organic life.
To them the universe has presented itself as a vast
organism, everywhere instinct with a self-develop-
ing vitality. But surely there can be neither
unity nor absoluteness in a life which is insepar-
able from physical conditions, confined within
organic limits, and which grows like a plant or
an animal. Anthropomorphism may be a poor
theory, but it must be better than phytomorphism
or zoomorphism. To conceive of the absolute
after the analogy of a plant or a beast may be
poetical, but it is so plainly irrational as to call
for no discussion.

2 D

41 8 Anti-Theistic Theories.

None but superficial thinkers, however, have
believed that the type of absolute unity was to
be found in the physical or organic world. The
material, the dynamical, and the organic forms of
pantheism have only had admirers among those in
whose minds speculation is in its infancy. Ele-
vated and comprehensive intellects, when they
have unhappily adopted pantheism, have almost
always become metaphysical pantheists. Let us
look, therefore, at the central ideas of some of the
metaphysical forms of pantheism.

There is a pantheism which places absolute
unity in absolute being, and which represents the
worlds of sense and of consciousness as illusions.
Finding that it cannot explain variety by unity, it
sacrifices variety to unity, so far as it is possible
for the human mind to do this. It maintains that
there is no real being but one, and that all the
objects of ordinary experience, and all the distinc-
tions of the common understanding, are illusions.
This has been the doctrine of men of great specu-
lative genius, and is as consistent a theory of pan-
theism as has yet been devised. On at least two
grounds, however, it may, I think, be safely pro-
nounced a failure. First, it admits that besides
the one real being there are appearances or illu-
sions. But even appearances or illusions are
phenomena which require to be explained. And

Pantheism in r'elation to Philosophy. 419

they cannot be explained on the hypothesis of
absolute unity. They imply that besides the abso-
lute being there are minds which can be haunted
by appearances, and which can be deluded into
believing that these appearances are realities.
Secondly, the pantheism which maintains that
there is no being except one, is under the neces-
sity of allying itself with a scepticism which will
not allow it to maintain that there is even one
being. It is only by the help of a scepticism
which denies the validity of the primary percep-
tions and fundamental laws of mind, that it can
undertake to show that plurality, time, and change
are illusions. But such scepticism is a very dan-
gerous associate. It is as ruinous to any one sys-
tem which professes to be a system of truth as to
any other; and no one system can legitimately
make use of it against another. If philosophical
scepticism be conclusive, the positive assertions
of pantheism must all be arbitrary. If we may
not believe in plurality, neither may we believe
in unity. If we may deny that time exists, not-
withstanding that it is a necessary condition of
thought, we may equally deny that eternity exists,
since we can give no other reason for our belief in
the existence of eternity than for our belief in the
existence of time.

There is another pantheism which, instead of

420 Anti-Tlicistic Theories.

sacrificing, like the one just mentioned, all variety
to unity, endeavours to find an absolute unity
which includes all variety. It rejects the view
that God and the world, mind and matter, are sub-
stantially distinct, and maintains that there is but
one substance — " that which exists in itself and is
conceived by itself, or, in other words, that the
conception of which does not require the concep-
tion of anything else antecedent to it." Infinite
extension and infinite thought are represented by
it as simply attributes of this substance, and all
minds and bodies as modes of these attributes. It
thus traces the material and mental worlds back
into a single all-comprehensive substance. This is
the kind of pantheism which was expounded with
so much genius by Spinoza. There are many ob-
jections to it, but I have only to indicate here that
what it proclaims to be absolute unity is nothing
of the kind. For, first, this substance, although it
can be conceived pci'' se, still must be conceived.
It is an object of thought, and only affirmed to
exist in virtue of being an object of thought. The
existence of substance is implied in the essence of
substance as part of its idea; such is the reason
given for asserting the existence of substance. But
if so, we have obviously here not one thing but two
things — substance and the idea of substance —
and the first is last and the last first. These two
cannot be fused into one. The idea of substance

PantJicisni in relation to PJiilosopJiy. 421

cannot be resolved into the substance itself, seeing
that, apart from the idea, there is no warrant for
belief in the existence of substance ; nor can sub-
stance itself be resolved into its idea, since it is
admitted that there may be in the substance itself
an infinity of attributes of which we have no idea,
and since, if substance be reducible to, or convert-
ible with its idea, the pantheism of substance must
be false, and must give place to absolute idealism.
Secondly, substance cannot be known per se, but
only through properties which are in relation to
the minds that know them. Nothing can be
known unless it has qualities which can be appre-
hended. But if this be the case, the attributes
and modes of substance are its aspects towards
minds, and hence substance, instead of explaining
and comprehending minds, implies and presup-
poses them. Thirdly, if we waive the objection
just stated, and grant that the attributes of sub-
stance are objectively and essentially in the sub-
stance itself, manifestly the substance can no
longer be thought of as an absolute unity, but
only as an aggregation of distinct essences. When
Spinoza maintained that extension and thought
were eternally and essentially, but not substan-
tially, distinct, he was obviously granting a real
duality and affirming a merely nominal unity.

There is another pantheism which, perceiving
the defects of the foregoing theory, places absolute

422 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

unity In the absolute identity of subject and ob-
ject, of the ideal and the real, of spirit and nature.
It holds spirit and nature to be fundamentally
the same — spirit being invisible nature, and nature
visible spirit — and refers both back to a principle
which transcends yet comprehends them, which
originates and constitutes the spheres both of
thought and being, and by its self-evolution forms
the entire universe into an organic whole. This
is the central idea in the pantheism of ScheUing.
It is not one, I think, which will bear examination.
P'or, in the first place, what it affirms to be the
absolute is really a process of development, or
at least something subject to growth — something
which advances from lower to higher, from worse
to better. But surely everything of the kind,
whether viewed in itself or as a process, or at
its latest and most definite stage as a product,
must be finite and relative. Infinity and pro-
gress, absoluteness and development, are mutu-
ally exclusive ideas. Secondly, the identity of
subject and object is a self-contradictory phrase
and conception. It is like the identity of black
and white, odd and even, male and female ; in
other words, it is an alleged instance of the
identity of correlatives. But just in so far as
there is identity there is not correlation, and in
so far as there is correlation there is not identity.
Thirdly, the human mind cannot form the least

Pantheism in relation to PhilosopJiy. 423

notion of a self-identical subject-object. All con-
sciousness involves the dualism of subject and
object. It is only realised as a relation. The
terms of the relation may be self and a modifica-
tion of self, for the object is not necessarily apart
from or out of the Ego ; but wherever there is
consciousness there is relation, and wherever there
is relation there is dualism. Consciousness can
no more transcend the dualism of subject and
object than a man can get away from himself
Fourthly, if there be such an absolute as is
alleged, the knowledge of its existence must be
identical with its existence. In the apprehension
of the absolute subject-object there must be no
distinction between knowing and being. But this
implies that the knowledge of the absolute is
not only unlike any knowledge of which we are
conscious, but is knowledge of which we can-
not possibly be conscious — knowledge which an-
nihilates our consciousness at the moment that it
identifies us with God. Schelling admitted that
his absolute could only be apprehended by a very
peculiar and indescribable act. Certainly any de-
scription he gave of it was peculiarly unintelligible
and absurd, as has been shown in a masterly man-
ner by Sir Wm. Hamilton in his essay on the
Philosophy of the Unconditioned. I am aware that
the correctness of Sir Wm. Hamilton's representa-
tion has been challenged, and the relevancy of his

424 Anti-Theistic Theories.

criticism denied, by a writer who has made an
earnest special study of the works of Schelling-;!
but I cannot find that any essential inaccuracy
has been shown to exist in Sir William's account,
although it may be granted to be incomplete ;
while his criticism would, it seems to me, remain
substantially applicable, even if the rival but not
really contradictory version as to what Schelling
taught were adopted. Finally, if the existence of
a unity of the sort imagined be granted to be
known, it must still be explained how the sub-
ject and object, with their various stages and
phases, have been produced by and from it. This
is a task which has not been successfully accom-
plished. The attempts made by Schelling to con-
striLC, as he called it, from the absolute principle
even the possible world, were quite fanciful. He
himself confessed that he was wholly unable to
explain by it the actual world, or even to show
that there was real existence. He spent his later
life in labouring to build up a theistic system to
supplement this rather serious defect in his earlier
philosophy.

Many pantheists failing to find a satisfactory
type of unity either in physical nature or in a
sphere common to matter and mind, have en-

^ See the paper on " Schelling's Life and Letters" in the 'Fort-
nightly Review,' Nov. i, 1870 ; and that on " Mr G. H. Lewes on
Schelling and Hegel" in the 'Contemporary Review,' Sept. 1872,
by Mr J. S. Henderson.

Panthcisvi in relation to PJiilosopJiy. 425

deavourcd to discover it in mind itself : while they
still refuse to -accept the view that a perfect and
personal spirit can alone account for the universe.
Hence we have a class of pantheisms based on
such conceptions as a universal Me, an absolute
Idea, and unconditioned Will, &c. These forms
of pantheism may be called psychical pantheisms,
in order to distinguish them from those which I
have designated physical and metaphysical.

There is a pantheism which describes the abso-
lute principle as a universal Ego which compre-
hends every particular Ego — a pure Me which
transcends yet manifests itself in every empirical
Me — a free and active Selfhood (Ichheit) which
posits the physical world as not-self, and objecti-
fies itself in the moral order of the world. But
this Ego or Me is, we are told, not a person ; it
becomes conscious only in individuals, and has no
existence apart from the world which it originates.
God is merely another name for the moral order
of the world. What are we to think of this view,
which was made famous by Fichte } What I
think of it is that he who accepts it must be
very easily satisfied. The very notion of a uni-
versal Ego — of an Ego which is no Ego in par-
ticular, and yet which is every particular Ego —
is an arbitrary and absurd mental fiction. What
cannot know itself to be a self — what cannot say
Me in contradistinction to Thee — has no x\<A\t to be

426 Anti-Theistic Theories.

thought or spoken of as an Ego or Me. All that
is real in the so-called universal Ego is the multi-
plicity of definite individuals in which it is alleged
to attain consciousness. The pure Me is affirmed
to be not a person, and to have no self-conscious-
ness, no knowledge of itself or in itself. That is,
of course, so much the more reason for denying
it to be a Me at all. If impersonal and uncon-
scious it may be an entity or a fiction — some sort
of thing or some sort of abstraction — but it must
certainly be something far too mean and poor to
be called an Ego. It comes to consciousness, it
is said, in each empirical Ego. But this assertion
must be distinctly denied. If the pure Ego is not
conscious of itself in itself, neither is it conscious
of itself in the empirical Ego. The empirical Ego
is conscious only of its own self. Consciousness,
in fact, knows nothing of a universal unconscious
Ego. If we grant the existence of such an Ego,
the worlds of consciousness and perception must
still be shown to be derivable from it. In this
part of his task Fichte is admitted on all hands
to have utterly failed. The physical world, in-
deed, he hardly even attempted to explain ; he
sought rather to explain it away.

Shall we adopt, then, Hegel's theory of the
absolute } He reduced everything to thought,
and deduced everything from thought. The
material and the moral world, nature and his-

Pantheism in relation to PJiilosopJiy. 427

tory, science, art, and religion, are, according to
him, but stages of an idea, apart from which they
have no existence, by the movement of which they
are constituted, and through which they are formed
into an organic and logical whole. Hegel professes
to give us a philosophy demonstrated from begin-
nincr to end, as it starts with the absolute first — the
simplest notion of reason — pure being — and thence
derives all knowledge and evolves all reality in a
continuous process of reasoning from abstract and
implicit to concrete and explicit, everywhere deter-
mined by the principle of the identity of contraries.
Vast ingenuity was shown in the elaboration and
application of this notion, but I have only to do
with the general notion itself, which need not
detain us long, since it involves all that is most
objectionable in the view of Schelling which we
have already given reasons for rejecting. It rep-
resents the absolute reality, for example, as the
result or completion of a process of development.
This is of itself enough to warrant its condemna-
tion. An absolute which is either in the course of
being developed or which has been developed is
sheer nonsense, but unfortunately it is also non-
sense of a kind which leads very easily to mon-
strous blasphemies. Hegelianism has never been
able to show that the only idea of God compatible
with its principles is not that of a God gradually
evolved from unconsciousness to consciousness, and

428 Aiiti-TJieistic Theories.

thence onwards to the height of the wisdom of
Hegel. Then, Hegel's view, like Schelling's, pro-
ceeds throughout on the assumption of the identity
of thought and being — a position which ought not
to be assumed but proved, and which is nowhere
proved. Can it be proved } Is it true } No.
Whatever is known is, and whatever is may be
known — infinite knowledge must be coextensive
with infinite existence — but that knowing and
being are identical is what by no effort of mind
can be rationally conceived or believed. Further,
Hegel, although he starts with a conception which
allows him to treat his thoughts as things, can only
seem to explain the evolution of things by making
absurdity the essence of reason and the principle
of demonstration. He calmly tells us that ordi-
nary and formal logic — those principles and pro-
cesses of reasoning to which we owe all the dis-
coveries of science and all the inventions of art —
cannot explain the concrete, and that the true
philosopher must disregard such logical laws as
the axioms of identity and contradiction, and sub-
stitute for them the identity of contradictories. In
other words, he undertakes to demonstrate his
system, but on condition that we accept as good
reasonings what sane judgment pronounces to be
bad arguments. He professes to explain the gen-
eration of God, man, and nature, from the pure
being which is equivalent to pure nothing ; but

Pantheism in relation to PhilosopJiy. 429

it is on the assumption that contradiction is the
essence of existence and of reason. Well, no
doubt, pure nothing as mother, and pure absurd-
ity as father, might be expected to beget a re-
markable family, and have done so in the dis-
coveries of Hegelianism. But true reason can, I
fear, have nothing to do either with the parents
or their children. It must still continue to recog-
nise Ex iiihilo nihil Jit as an axiom, and to with-
hold its admiration from contradictions. It may
be added that true reason must treat impersonal
thought — thought without a thinker — and uncon-
scious thought, or thought of which consciousness
is only an accident — an acquisition attained in
man — as unthinkable thought, a highly ridiculous
kind of thought, closely akin to the pure being
w4iich is pure nothing, yet possesses the power of
becoming everything.

Since Hegel's time pantheism has decidedly
gone from bad to worse. Hegel placed the abso-
lute unity in reason and sought to deduce every-
thing from reason, although he unfortunately mis-
took unreason for reason ; but those who have come
after him have openly likened the absolute to what
is devoid of reason in us — to blind Will (Schopen-
hauer), to the Unconscious (Von Hartmann), to
the Irrational (Bahnsen), &c. Thus they have
transformed pantheism into atheism and pessim-
ism. This is what pantheism has developed into ;

430 Anti-Theistic Theories,

and one is at a loss to conceive what can come
next. Beyond pessimism and the glorification of
unreason there would seem to be nothing but
nihilism and the worship of the Devil. I have
elsewhere, however, said perhaps enough about
the views of the absolute given by the pessimistic
forms of pantheism.

I may reaffirm, then, that the pretended abso-
lute unity of pantheism always turns out, when
critically examined, to be a unity merely in name,
and otherwise to be an idol of the imagination, or
at least a thoroughly inadequate explanation of
the universe. The fact that such unity, just be-
cause arbitrary and fictitious, can be conceived
of, however, in a great variety of ways, is one of
the main sources of the strength and permanence
of pantheism speculatively considered. The system
is a very Proteus. In any one form it is weak ; but
when worsted in one form it can readily appear
in another, and the struggle must be renewed.
Or, to change the figure, it is an enemy which
is neither strong in attack nor in direct defence,
but which is skilled in the art of retreat and pos-
sessed of numerous cities of refuge. None of these
cities stands a long siege ; but when one of them is
taken the conqueror has often the mortification of
seeing another behind it, where his old enemy is
blowing trumpets and waving , flags, as if he had
been gaining a victory instead of suffering a defeat.

Consequences of Pantheism. 43 1

Belief in pantheistic unity is, if my argumenta-
tion has been vahd, intellectual idolatry. It is an
idolatry which requires us to make the most enor-
mous and costly sacrifices. Let us consider for
a moment what some of these are. First, then,
all the arguments employed by theism to show
the existence of a God of wisdom and righteous-
ness must be discarded. These arguments are as
relevant against pantheism as against atheism.
Now, of course, no one can reasonably object to
their rejection after refutation, but we are bound
to insist that they be not rejected until they are
refuted, — that they be proved and not assumed to
be inconclusive. With our reasons for belief in a
living personal God the belief itself must neces-
sarily be abandoned, and instead of a Father,
Judge, and Redeemer, we must be content with
some so - called Absolute which neither knows
itself nor cares for us. What a wretched ex-
change ! And with loss of belief in a personal
God we must lose all the hopes and assurances
attached to that belief, and become burdened with
all the consequences which flow from its denial.
I shall not attempt to transcribe the dismal bal-
ance-sheet.

Further, pantheism by affirming the identity of
thought and existence calls on us to sacrifice all
objects of thought which cannot be conceived of
otherwise than as distinct from thought, and which

432 Anti-TIieistic Theories.

must be first presented to the mind before they
can be represented by it ; while, by referring the
phenomena of matter and of mind to one sub-
stance, it requires us either to sacrifice both to an
indeterminate existence which cannot be appre-
hended nor even imagined, or at least to sacrifice
the one to the other. But we cannot make sacri-
fices of this kind without being necessitated to
make others which are perhaps still greater. If
we hold fast to the indeterminate, and persist in
evolving from it both the material and mental
worlds, we must have another organ of apprehen-
sion than ordinary men, and employ a different
sort of logic than that of the common understand-
ing. Our minds must have intuitions and pro-
cesses which are entirely superhuman — a know-
ledge which transcends consciousness, and a dialec-
tic which is independent of the laws of thought.
If, on the other hand, we suppress either matter or
mind, it can only be by an application of scepticism
which we are logically bound to repeat and to
generalise until no object or faculty continues to
be acknowledged as trustworthy. Pantheism in-
evitably involves either mysticism or scepticism ;
and both mysticism and scepticism mean the
sacrifice, the suicide of reason.

Then it requires us also to regard as delusive
the consciousness which each man possesses of
being a self or person. Whoever knows himself as

Consequences of Pantheism. 433

a self, a person, knows that he is not a mere part
of God or of any other being ; he knows himself
as different from God and from every other being.
The self-consciousness which is in each man can-
not at once be his own proper self-consciousness
and the self-consciousness which has been acquired
bv God. Self-consciousness is sinc^le, not dual.
But there are millions on millions of self-conscious
beings or persons in the world. And pantheism,
in order to adhere to its dogma of absolute unity,
must contradict the testimony borne by the con-
sciousness of all these beings. It is logically
bound to affirm that each of them is under a
delusion when he supposes himself to be truly a
self or person. But what does this imply } Why,
that from true persons, really distinct from all
other beings — free, responsible, moral — it must
reduce and degrade them to mere semblances , for
with personality, their freedom of will, responsi-
bility, duty, must be likewise sacrificed. I should
have to dwell long on this if I were to attempt to
exhibit the various particulars which are involved,
and therei*ore I must be content with the mere
general declaration that pantheistic unity can only
be attained at the cost of the abandonment of all
the fundamental moral convictions and spiritual
aspirations of humanity.

It is only an intellectual idol like the pantheis-
tic unity which can demand sacrifices so numerous
2 E

434 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

and enormous. It demands them just because it
is an intellectual idol — a false unity — a unity of a
kind which can never be legitimately attained. We
cannot but recognise both the finite and the infinite,
the relative and the absolute, the contingent and the
necessary ; but we cannot by the utmost efibrt of
reason reduce them to one absolute essence from
which the whole universe of thought and beinsf
may be shown to have necessarily proceeded.

The highest unity to which the finite mind can
rise is, it seems to me, the unity of a single crea-
tive inteUigent Will — the one infinite personal
God of theism. To this unity all multiplicity
may be traced back. It is no abstract and dead
unity, but one which is real, which is all-compre-
hensive, which fully explains both the unity and
variety of the universe, and which fully satisfies at
once the demands of the intellect and the heart ;
for it is a unity which contains the infinite fulness
of power, wisdom, and love. It is an absolute
unity in the only sense in which that phrase con-
veys an intelligible and credible meaning — that is
to say, it is one Being which is self-existent and
self-sufficient, which is entirely independent of
every other being, and possessed in itself of every
excellence in an infinite measure ; while it is the
sole and free source of all finite excellence.
Whatever the pantheist describes as an absolute
unity must be one and absolute in some way much

Thcistic and PantJicistic Unity. 435

inferior to this. The unity of matter, the unity of
force, the unity of all that is unconscious and im-
personal, is unessential and derivative, yea, even
illusory if separated from the underlying and
original unity of a self-active mind. Only that
which says " I " cannot be divided or supposed to
be divided ; and that which says " I," while abso-
lutely indivisible, may possess an infinite wealth
of powers and properties. The absoluteness of an
infinite which necessarily originates the finite is a
relative and dependent absoluteness ; it is the
absoluteness of a being which is not self-sufficient
— which is as dependent on what it produces as
that which it produces is dependent on it — which
is necessarily related to the finite — which, although
an infinite that is necessarily and completely active,
has only a finite result. This is a curious absolute-
ness; or rather, it is a manifest absurdity which
involves the negation of the principle of causality
and of every other principle of rational thought.
The theist keeps free from it. God is absolute in
the view of the theist, because He alone is self-
dependent and self-complete — because He stands
in necessary relation to nothing finite, and yet can
constitute and enter into all relations with the
finite, which He chooses, and which are consist-
ent with His intrinsic perfections. According to
theism, whatever is, and is not God, is a creature
of God, and no creature of God has, like God,

43^ Anti-Theistic Theories.

necessary existence. According to theism, God
is the one necessary Being, and He being self-
sufficient, needs no other beings in order to realise
perfect self-consciousness or to secure perfect bless-
edness. This seems to me a much more consistent
and satisfactory view of absoluteness than that of
the pantheist.

It must be admitted, of course, that from the
unity to which theism refers us, an absolute science
such as pantheism promises cannot possibly be
deduced. Alike the infinity and the freedom of
the single supreme will make it impossible that
a finite mind should so comprehend it as to be
able logically to determine its decisions and acts.
In the very knowing, indeed, that there is a God,
we know that lie is infinite, eternal, and unchange-
able, in His power, wisdom, and holiness ; but this
knowledge of His general attributes can never
justify our pretending to specify what must be His
particular doings, or to maintain more than that
none of His doings will be found to be unworthy
of His character. The finite mind may legiti-
mately convince itself that there is an infinite
mind, but it can never so comprehend such a mind
as to be capable of speculatively deducing what
it can or must or will do. Absolute science is the
science of an infinite reason, and not the science
which can be attained by a creature like man ; it
is knowledge in v/hich there is no distinction be-

PantJicisni and the Llca of Creation. 437

tween comprehension and apprehension — in which
there is no imperfection or incompleteness — on
which there can be no alteration, and to which
there can be no addition, — and therefore it is
knowledge necessarily and for ever beyond the
reach of all finite intelligences. " Who by search-
ing can find out God ? Who can find out the
Almighty unto perfection?"

Pantheism stumbles at the idea of creation. It
affirms that creation is inconceivable, and infers
that it is impossible. In treating of materialism,
I have indicated that the assertion is equivocal and
the inference illegitimate. But another argument
has been employed. The idea of the creation of a
finite universe in time has been pronounced dishon-
ouring to God, as implying that His omnipotence is
to a large extent inoperative. What, we are asked,
was Omnipotence doing before creation } How
and why did infinite power produce only a finite
eftect } Is power unused not power wasted .-* Is
there not something irrational and repellent in the
thought of an omnipotence which originates only
a limited sum of results — which has no adequate
operation or object } To break or avoid the force
of these questions some theologians have main-
tained that God does all that He can — that His
activity is the full expression of His ability ; and
others have argued that nature is an eternal and
infinite creation. These are views, however, which,

43 S Anti-TIieistic Theories.

far from warding off pantheism, inevitably tend
to it ; and they grievously offend against reason,
which declares It an absurdity that even an infinite
power should produce an infinite effect within a
finite sphere — within limits of time and space.
Is, then, omnipotence never fully exercised ? Is
infinite power never fully productive ? We have
no right to think so. Although omnipotence can-
not express itself fully In the finite world to which
we belong, the Divine nature may be in Itself an
infinite universe where this and all other attributes
can find complete expression. Is either God's
power or His activity to be measured exclusively
by the production or support of beings distinct
from Himself? If so, obviously, unless His power
be perpetually and completely exercised about
finite things, His activity is not equal to His power,
and He Is not Infinitely active, but only infinitely
capable of acting. Even Infinite activity, however,
and absolutely Infinite production, cannot be rea-
sonably denied to the Divine nature. As activity
is a perfection, infinite activity may be reasonably
held to be a supreme perfection which must be
ascribed to God. If an absolutely infinite agent
acts according to all the extent of Its absolutely
infinite nature. It must necessarily produce an
absolutely infinite effect ; the effect would not
otherwise be proportionate to the cause. The
production of an absolutely infinite effect must be

PantJicisDi and the Idea of Creation. 439

a far greater perfection than the creation of any
number of finite effects, and the mind may feel
constrained to refer such production to God. So
be it. But must the infinite effect fall within the
realm of contingency, of time, of space.? Must
it not, on the contrary, belong to the sphere of the
essential, the eternal, the absolute.? Must it not
lie within instead of without the Godhead .? Must
it not be such an effect as theologians mean when
they speak of the eternal generation of the Word
or tJie eternal proeession of the Holy Spirit.? It
cannot, I think, be such an effect as external crea-
tion. God can never find or produce without Him-
self an object equal to Himself and fully com-
mensurate with His essential, necessary activity
and love. The Divine nature must have in itself
a plenitude of power and glory to which the pro-
duction of numberless worlds can add nothing.

Any difficulties not merely verbal and mani-
festly superficial which pantheists have raised as
to the nature of the Divine personality likewise
lead, I believe, to the conclusion, not that we should
reject theism, but that we should reverence and
appreciate more highly the Christian doctrine of
the Trinity — a mystery indeed, yet one which
explains many other mysteries, and w^hich sheds
a marvellous light on God, on nature, and on man.
I have appealed, however, throughout this course
of lectures, only to reason ; and I am quite willing

440 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

that my arguments against pantheism and all
other anti-theistic theories, as well as my argu-
ments on behalf of theism, should be judged of by
reason alone, without my reference to revelation.

I now bring these lectures to a close. It is with
the trust that they may not have been wholly
unprofitable to you, or unaccompanied by the
blessing of God. To His name be honour and
glory for ever. Amen.

APPENDIX.

Note I., page 3.

The terms Theism, Deism, Atheism, and
Anti-Theism.

There is considerable uncertainty as to the derviation
of thebs, the term from which comes theism. Herodotus
(ii. 52) traces it to tithenai, to place or set The Pelas-
gians, he says, did not give particular names to their
gods, but " called them theoi, because of having placed
{thelites) all things in order." Were this etymology cor-
rect, the recognition of order was what moved the Pelas-
gians to designate the objects of their worship theoi. On
this supposition the Greek name for God was an im-
mediate creation of the teleological principle — an ex-
pression or deposit of the design argument. Herodotus
believed it to be so.

Plato (Cratylus, xvi. 397) derives tJiebs from theein,
to run. He represents Socrates as saying that " the first
men connected with Greece considered those only as
gods, whom many of the barbarians at present regard as
such, — the sun, and the moon, and the earth, and the

442 Anti-Theistic Theories.

stars, and the heavens. Now as they perceived all
these moving and running round in a perpetual course,
from this nature of running they called them gods (aTro
TavT7]<; TTJs cfiV(T€o)<5 Trj<i Tov Ouv Oeov'i avTOv<; iTrovojUidcrai) ;
but afterwards, perceiving that there were others, they
called them all by the same name."

When the philological importance of Sanscrit began
to be realised, the derivations of the term from Greek
fell into disfavour, and it was almost universally sup-
posed to have come from the root div (shining), like the
Sanscrit deva, Latin deus, diviis^ and the Greek Zeus.
This derivation is now, however, rejected by some of
the highest authorities. Schleicher went back to the
etymology suggested by Plato ; Hainebach has defended
that given by Herodotus ; and Curtius inclines to derive
from a root ^es (to beseech). Fick decides in favour of
a Sanscrit root dhi., to shine, to look, to be pious. If
the last of these views be correct, the root thought of
theos and deus is the same, although each has had its
own root-word. It seems certain that they cannot have
grown out of the same verbal root.

Deism is distinguished from theism by probably all
recent theologians in substantially the same manner.
Some oppose it to theism ; others include it in theism as
a species in a genus ; but this does not prevent their
agreeing as to the distinction to be drawn. Deism is
regarded as, in common with theism, holding, in opposi-
tion to atheism, that there is a God, and, in opposition
to pantheism, that God is distinct from the world, but
as differing from theism in maintaining that God is sep-
arate from the world, having endowed it with self-sus-
taining and self-acting powers, and then abandoned it to
itself. Writing of my previous volume, Mr Bradlaugh

Appendix: Note I. 443

(Nat. Ref., Jan. 6, 187S) says: "You draw a distinc-
tion between deism and theism (p. 91), for whicli I am
not aware that there is any warranty. Surely both deist
and theist mean precisely the same — viz., believer in
' Deus,' ' Theos/ ' God.' You may have any qualifying
words to express the character of the belief, as Christian
Theism, or Mahommedan Theism, but I do not under-
stand that the use of the Latin or Greek form conveys,
or ought to convey, any difterent or distinguishable
meaning." In reply, I would observe that the distinc-
tion is not at all of my drawing, but one made use of by
all contemporary Christian apologists. The distinction
is, further, a real distinction, yet one which, so far as I
know, there is no suitable qualifying word to express.
Terms like Christian and Mohammedan certainly do
not, as they merely characterise difterent forms of theism
proper, or at least of theism as distinguished from deism.
On this account it seems to me that the distinction would
have been warranted even had the etymology of deism
and theism been the same, whereas this is, as has been
already indicated, extremely doubtful.

At the same time it must be admitted that the word
''deist," when used m the manner indicated, may occa-
sion injustice. It may be confounded — and in fact often
is confounded — with a difterent application of the term,
— with what may be called its historical application.
Christian apologists, as a rule, when speaking of the so-
called " English deists," represent them as having denied
that God was present and active in the laws of nature.
This is erroneous and unfair. One or two of them may
have done so, but certainly what as a body they denied
was merely that God worked otherwise than througli
natural laws. It is curious that the orthodox writers

442 Anti-Theistic Theories.

stars, and the heavens. Now as they perceived all
these moving and running round in a perpetual course,
from this nature of running they called them gods (aTro
T<xvTy]% T7]<s cjivo-cwi rrj<g tov Oelv ^eovs avTOv<; iTrovofxao-ai) ;
but afterwards, perceiving that there were others, they
called them all by the same name."

When the philological importance of Sanscrit began
to be realised, the derivations of the term from Greek
fell into disfavour, and it was almost universally sup-
posed to have come from the root div (shining), like the
Sanscrit deva, Latin deus, divus^ and the Greek Zeus.
This derivation is now, however, rejected by some of
the highest authorities. Schleicher went back to the
etymology suggested by Plato ; Hainebach has defended
that given by Herodotus ; and Curtius inclines to derive
from a root ^cs (to beseech). Fick decides in favour of
a Sanscrit root dJii^ to shine, to look, to be pious. If
the last of these views be correct, the root thought of
theos and dens is the same, although each has had its
own root-word. It seems certain that they cannot have
grown out of the same verbal root.

Deism is distinguished from theism by probably all
recent theologians in substantially the same manner.
Some oppose it to theism ; others include it in theism as
a species in a genus ; but this does not prevent their
agreeing as to the distinction to be drawn. Deism is
regarded as, in common with theism, holding, in opposi-
tion to atheism, that there is a God, and, in opposition
to pantheism, that God is distinct from the world, but
as differing from theism in maintaining that God is sep-
arate from the world, having endowed it with self-sus-
taining and self-acting powers, and then abandoned it to
itself. Writing of my previous volume, Mr Bradlaugh

Appendix: Note I. 443

(Xat. Ref., Jan. 6, 1878) says: "You draw a distinc-
tion between deism and theism (p. 91), for which I am
not aware that there is any warranty. Surely both deist
and theist mean precisely the same — viz., believer in
'Deus,' 'Theos,' 'God.' You may have any qualifying
words to express the character of the belief, as Christian
Theism, or Mahommedan Theism, but I do not under-
stand that the use of the Latin or Greek form conveys,
or ought to convey, any different or distinguishable
meaning." In reply, I would observe that the distinc-
tion is not at all of my drawing, but one made use of by
all contemporary Christian apologists. The distinction
is, further, a real distinction, yet one which, so far as I
know, there is no suitable qualifying word to express.
Terms like Christian and JMohammedan certainly do
not, as they merely characterise ditierent forms of theism
proper, or at least of theism as distinguished from deism.
On this account it seems to me that the distinction would
have been warranted even had the etymology of deism
and theism been the same, whereas this is, as has been
already indicated, extremely doubtful.

At the same time it must be admitted that the word
"deist," when used in the manner indicated, may occa-
sion injustice. It may be confounded — and in fact often
is confounded — with a different application of the term,
— with what may be called its historical application.
Christian apologists, as a rule, when speaking of the so-
called " English deists," represent them as having denied
that God was present and active in the laws of nature.
This is erroneous and unfair. One or two of them may
have done so, but certainly what as a body they denied
was merely that God worked otherwise than througli
natural laws. It is curious that the orthodox writers

44^ Anti-TJieistic Theories.

Note II., page lo.
Absolute Atheism implies Infinite Knowledge.

The passage from John Foster to which reference is
made in the lecture is the following : " The wonder
turns on the great process, by which a man could grow
to the immense intelligence that can know there is no
God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this
attainment? This intelligence involves the very attri-
butes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless
this man is omnipresent — unless he is at this moment in
every place in the universe, — he cannot know but there
may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which
even he would be overpowered. If he does not abso-
lutely know every agent in the universe, the one that he
does not know may be God. If he is not himself the
chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is
so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in abso-
lute possession of all the propositions that constitute
universal truth, the one which he wants may be that
there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the
cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may
be a God. If he does not know everything that has
been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some
things may have been done by a God. Thus unless he
knows all things — that is, precludes another Deity by
being one himself— he cannot know that the Being
whose existence he rejects does not exist." — (Essays,
p. 35, 15th ed.)

The criticism of Mr Holyoake on this argument, to
which reference is also made in the lecture, will be found

Appendix : Note IL 447

on pp. 75, 76 of his 'Trial of Theism,' 1858. "Two
points," he says, "are to be noticed. Foster puts a
strict, an arbitrary, and an absolute sense upon the word
'denial.' Next, that he introduces a false element into
the argument — that of pe7'sonal knowledge — which is for-
bidden to the atheist when he introduces it into reason-
ing. A single remark will show the fallacy of this as-
sumption. It is quite true that we do not 'know' that
God does not exist; it is also true that no theist knows
that He docs exist. If I ask a theist the question. Have
you any actual knowledge through the senses that God
exists? he will probably tell me that I am both ignorant
and presumptuous. He will remind me that ' no man
hath seen God at any time.' He will tell me that the
existence of Deity is not a fact of the senses — that it is
not a matter of knowledge, but a matter of revelation, or
an argument from analogy — a logical inference — or an
intuition — or a feeling — or a question of probability,
when we reason inductively from causes to effects — or a
'necessity of the intellect' when speculation tires on the
wing, and thought has exhausted its utmost force. If,
therefore, the theist is without the knowledge that God
does exist, why should Foster demand of the atheist the
knowledge that God does not exist? If the theist refuses
the test of eyesight for his affirmation, why does he de-
mand it of the atheist for his 'denial'? If the theist
may use argument, why not the atheist ? If the theist
may reason and can reason only on the evidence of the
intellect, why do Foster, Chalmers, and all divines de-
mand from the atheist evidence of the senses? The
case fairly stated stands thus : The theist says, all
things considered — all present argument weighed — it is
clear to me that God exists. The atheist says, all things

44^ Aiiti-Thcistic Theories.

considered — all present argument weighed — it appears to
me that the infinite secret is beyond our finite powers to
penetrate. Foster cannot be said to recognise this fact.
He refutes our position by evading it ; and those who
do not know, or do not care to discern what it is, assume
a question settled which indeed is not truly touched."

It often happens that even able and candid men at-
tem])t to refute arguments which they have failed to
understand. Of this there could not be a clearer and
more striking, almost startling, instance than these words
of Mr Holyoake. It is impossible to read them without
perceiving that, when he wrote them, he had not the
most remote conception of what Foster meant or aimed
at. He plainly did not perceive that Foster's argument
was in no degree or respect directed against critical
atheism — against what Mr Holyoake calls ''our posi-
tion"— but entirely and exclusively against absolute or
dogmatic atheism. Failing in some inexplicable way to
perceive this, he naturally fell into those curious mistakes
which he presents as criticisms.

Chalmers's restatement of Foster's argument is pre-
sented in the following passage: "To be able to say
that there is a God, we may have only to look abroad
on some definite territory, and point to the vestiges that
are given of His power and His presence somewhere.
To be able to say that there is no God, we must walk
the whole expanse of infinity, and ascertain by observa-
tion that such vestiges are to be found nowhere. Grant
that no trace of Him can be discerned in that quarter of
contemplation which our puny optics have explored,
does it follow that, throughout all immensity, a Being
with the essence and sovereignty of a God is nowhere to
be found ? Because through our loopholes of communi-

Appendix : Note II. 449

cation with that small portion of external nature which
is before us, we have not seen or ascertained a God,
must we therefore conclude of every unknown and un-
trodden vastness in this illimitable universe that no
Divinity is there ? Or because, through the brief suc-
cessions of our little day, these heavens have not once
broken silence, is it therefore for us to speak to all the
periods of that eternity w^hich is behind us, and to say
tliat never hath a God come forth with the unequivocal
tokens of his existence? Ere we can say that there is
a God, we must have seen, on that portion of nature to
which we have access, the print of His footsteps, or
have had direct intimation from Himself, or been satis-
fied by the authentic memorials of His converse with
our species in other days. But ere we can say that
there is no God, we must have roamed over all nature,
and seen that no mark of a Divine footstep was there ;
and we must have gotten intimacy with every existent
spirit in the universe, and learned from each that never
did a revelation of the Deity visit him ; and we must
have searched, not into the records of one solitary
planet, but into the archives of all worlds, and thence
gathered that, throughout the wide realms of immensity,
not one exhibition of a reigning and living God ever has
been made. . . . To make this out w^e should need
to travel abroad over the surrounding universe till we
had exhausted it, and to search backward through all
the hidden recesses of eternity ; to traverse in every
direction the plains of infinitude, and sweep the out-
skirts of that space which is itself interminable ; and
then bring back to this little w^orld of ours the report of
a universal blank, wdierein we had not met with one
manifestation or one movement of a presiding God.
2 F

450 Anti-Theistic Theories.-

For man not to know of a God, he has only to sink
beneath the level of our common nature. But to deny
Him, he must be a God himself. He must arrogate the
ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead." — Natural
Theology, vol. i. b. i. ch. ii.

Note III., page 19.
Physicus.

In ' A Candid Examination of Theism ' by " Physi-
cus," the argumentation in my previous volume has been
subjected to a lengthened examination (see "Supple-
mentary Essay II.," pp. 152-180). It is not, perhaps,
very necessary, yet it may not be altogether undesirable,
to make a few remarks on the criticisms with which I
have been honoured.

Physicus has withdrawn his faith from theism and
transferred it to the metaphysical physics expounded by
Mr Herbert Spencer, but pronounced scientifically in-
defensible by such physicists as Sir W. Thomson, Clerk-
Maxwell, Balfour Stewart, Tait, &c. He manifestly de-
sires to be impartial, but is far from very successful in
this respect. Thus, at the very outset of his work he
tells us that, " with the partial exception of Mr Mill, no
competent writer has hitherto endeavoured, once for all,
to settle the long-standing question of the rational prob-
ability of theism;" that "a favourite piece of apologetic
juggling is that of first demolishing atheism, pantheism,
materialism, &c., by successively calling upon them to
explain the mystery of self- existence, and then tacitly

Appendix : Note III. 45 i

assuming that the need of such an explanation is absent
in the case of theism — as though the attribute in ques-
tion were more conceivable when posited in a Deity
than when posited elsewhere;" and that "another
argument, or semblance of an argument, is the very
prevalent one, ' Our heart requires a God ; therefore
it is probable that there is a God.' " The first of these
statements virtually pronounces incompetent all writers
on natural theology, except Mr Mill and Physicus; the
second ascribes to theism a mode of reasoning which it
has never employed ; and the third travesties the argu-
ment which it declares to be prevalent. Such errors
are extremely common in the pages of Physicus. He
is, nevertheless, an interesting writer.

His objections to the reasoning by which I attempt
to show that on no plausible theory of the nature of
matter can it be concluded to be self- existent, or any-
thing more than an effect, arise entirely from over-
looking the hypothetical and disjunctive character of
my argumentation. Thus, for example, he censures
my having "adopted the absurd argument" by which
Professor Clerk-Maxwell endeavours to show that atoms
cannot have been made by any of the processes called
natural, and thinks it relevant to assert that the atomic
theory is probably not true. Why, my approval of
Professor Clerk-Maxwell's argument is expressly stated
to be conditioned by the supposition that the atomic
theory of the ultimate nature of matter is true, while I
have nowhere indicated that I myself adopt that theory
or prefer it to others. The same remark applies to his
criticism of the arrrmiient founded on the vortex-rinsr
hypothesis of the origin of matter, as to which he has
further failed to perceive that it rests on the idea of a

452 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

perfect fluid. His notion that the argument as to the
non- eternal character of heat impHes a knowledge of
the universe as a whole, has not the slightest reason or
relevancy. I have adopted none of the theories alluded
to, as I should thereby have weakened my argument
and represented theism as dependent on some partic-
ular speculation in physics, when in reality its evidence
is greatly superior to what can be brought forward for
the majority of scientific doctrines. I merely argued
that, from any plausible theory of matter, it follows that
matter is not to be regarded as self-existent ; and that
the reasoning by which it has been attempted to prove
that heat is non-eternal, requires to be refuted by those
who assert or assume that the world is eternal.

He passes from that part of my work which he has
failed to understand, in consequence of disregarding the
theory of disjunctive syllogisms and the principles of
physics, to my treatment of the design argument. This
he admits to have been quite conclusive against all
opponents until he himself appeared. " For this argu-
ment assumes, rightly enough, that the only alternative
w^e have in choosing our hypothesis concerning the final
explanation of things, is either to regard that explana-
tion as Intelligence or as Fortuity. This, I say, was a
legitimate argument a few months ago, because, up to
that time, no one had shown that strictly natural causes,
as distinguished from chances, could conceivably be able
to produce a cosmos ; and although the several previous
writers to whom Professor Flint alludes — and he might
have alluded to others in this connection — entertained a
dim anticipation of the fact that natural causes might
alone be sufficient to produce the observed universe,
still these dim anticipations were worthless as arguments

Appendix: Note III. 453

so long as it remained impossible to suggest any natural
principle whereby such a result could have been conceiv-
ably effected by such causes. But it is evident that
Professor Flint's time-honoured argument is now com-
pletely overthrown, unless it can be proved that there is
some radical error in the reasoning whereby I have en-
deavoured to show that natural causes not only may, but
must, have produced existing order. The overthrow is
complete, because the very groundwork of the argument
in question is knocked away ; a third possibility, of the
nature of a necessity, is introduced, and therefore the
alternative is no longer between Intelligence and For-
tuity, but between Intelligence and Natural Causation."
From words like these one would suppose that Physicus
had discovered a quite new explanation of the order of
the universe. But no ; when we turn to Chapters iv.
and vi." — those to which he so triumphantly points us —
we find that he has merely to tell us, what materialists
have constantly told us, from Leucippus and Democritus
downwards — namely, that " all and every law follows as
a necessary consequence from the persistence of force
and the primary qualities of matter," and that he pre-
sents to us a number of loose statements to this eftect,
singly as " illustrations," and collectively as a '' demon-
stration," of it. If the design argument is not valid
against the reasoning in these chapters it was never valid
in any reference. Physicus produces no particle of evi-
dence to show that force is a '' self-existent substance " or
"eternal substratum," and explains in no single case how
without law it should produce law, or how it should pro-
duce order, unless so defined as to quantity, so dis-
tributed, and otherwise so conditioned, as to presuppose
intelligence. The root of a large amount of his con-

454 Anti-TJicistic Theories.

fusion is to be traced to his entertaining mythical and
anti-scientific notions about "force" and "the persist-
ence of force," which a deHberate and candid perusal
of the chapters on " the varieties of energy " and " the
conservation of energy " in any good treatise on Physics
might possibly dissipate.

The criticisms on the evidence for the moral attributes
of God entirely ignore its character and weight as a
whole, and need no other answer than that the sentences
objected to should be restored to their original connec-
tion and interpreted in relation to their context.

It is impossible to read the following passages from
the work of Physicus without deeply deploring that a
blunder in physics should have caused so much con-
fusion in an interesting intellect, and inflicted so much
pain on an apparently noble nature : —

" If it had been my lot to have lived in the last genera-
tion, I should certainly have rested in these ' sublime
conceptions' as an argument supreme and irrefutable.
I should have felt that the progress of physical know-
ledge could never exert any other influence on theism
than that of ever tending more and more to confirm that
magnificent belief, by continuously expanding our human
thoughts into progressively advancing conceptions, ever
grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin
of Things — the Mind of God. Such would have been
my hope — such would have been my prayer. But now,
how changed ! Never in the history of man has so ter-
rific a calamity befallen the race as that which all who
look may now behold advancing as a deluge, black with
destruction, resistless in might, uprooting our most
cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and
burying our highest life in mindless desolation. Science,

Appendix : Note III. 455

wliom erstwhile we thought a very Angel of God, point-
ing to that great barrier of Law, and proclaiming to the
restless sea of changing doubt, ' Hitherto shalt thou
come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be
stayed,* — even Science has now herself thrown down
this trusted barrier ; the flood-gates of infidelity are open,
and atheism overwhelming is upon us," — Pp. 51, 52.

"So far as the ruination of individual happiness is
concerned, no one can have a more lively perception
than myself of the possibly disastrous tendency of my
work. So far as I am individually concerned, the result
of this analysis has been to show that, whether I regard
the problem of theism on the lower plane of strictly
relative probability, or on the higher plane of purely
formal considerations, it equally becomes my obvious
duty to stifle all belief of the kind which I conceive to
be the noblest, and to discipline my intellect with regard
to this matter into an attitude of the purest scepticism.
And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree
with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the
' new faith ' is a desirable substitute for the waning
splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to confess
that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to
me has lost its soul of loveliness ; and although from
henceforth the precept to ' work vv^hile it is day ' will
doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly
intensified meaning of the words that ' the night cometh
when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as
think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between
the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine,
and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it, — at
such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the
sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible. For

456 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

whether it be due to my intelligence not being suffi-
ciently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or
whether it be due to the memory of those sacred associa-
tions which to me, at least, were the sweetest that life
has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for others
who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those
words of Hamilton, — Philosophy having become a medi-
tation, not merely of death, but of annihilation, the
precept knoiv thyself has become transformed into the
terrific oracle to CEdipus — ' Mayest thou ne'er know the
truth of what thou art.'"

Be not Martyrs by Mistake.

Note IV., page t^Z.
History, Causes, and Consequences of Atheism.

Few works were written expressly against atheism
until the sixteenth century was considerably advanced.
The ' Antiatheon ' of Fr. Boria, published at Toulouse in
1561, the ' Atheomachie ' of De Bourgeville, published
at Paris in 1564, the ' Atheomachie ' of Baruch Caneph,
published at Geneva in 1581, and the ' Atheoraastix' of
G. Ab. Assonlevilla, published at Antwerp in 1598, were
among the earliest specimens of the class.

Publications of this kind followed one another in
rapid succession during the seventeenth century. Among
those which appeared in English, the following may
be specified : Martin Fotherby's ' Atheomastix' (1622) ;
Walter Charleton's ' Darkness of Atheism expelled by
the Light of Nature' (1652); Henry More's 'Antidote
against Atheism' (1662); Sir Charles Wolseley's 'Un-

Appendix: Note IV, 4^7

reasonableness of Atheism' (1669); J. M.'s 'Atheist
Silenced' (1672); John Howe's 'Living Temple, against
Atheism, or Epicurean Deism' (First Part, 1675); Ralph
Cudworth's *True Intellectual System of the Universe,
wherein all the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is
confuted, and its Impossibility demonstrated' (1678),
Richard Bentley's ' Boyle Lecture : A Confutation of
Atheism' (1692); J. Edwards's ' Thoughts on the Causes
and Occasions of Atheism ' (1695); and A. B.'s ' Mystery
of Atheism, or the Devices to Propagate it' (1699).

A continuous stream of attacks on atheism flowed
from the press all through the eighteenth century. A
mere catalogue of them would fill many pages. It is a
fact which merits to be carefully noted, that during the
long period which intervened from about the middle of
the sixteenth to about the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury, notwithstanding the multitude of books written
against atheism, scarcely any — perhaps none — appeared
in its defence. Its assailants were rather at war with a
tendency or frame of spirit prevalent in society, than
with definite forms of atheism, strictly so called. Their
application of the terms atheism and atheist was generally
very loose — often quite reckless. Epicureanism, even
when combined with Deism, Hobbism, and Spinozism,
were long treated as the chief manifestations of atheism.
There were probably, however, in the period referred to,
a large number of real atheists, although they did not
consider it desirable to propagate their opinions through
the printing-press.

Attempts were early made to sketch the history of
atheism, as, e.g., by Niemann in 1668, Reiser in 1669,
Jenkins Thomas in 1709 (1716), and Reimann in 1725.
But there is even at present no general history of atheism
of much value. One of the most ridiculous works of

45 S Anti-TJicistic Theories.

a historical character on atheism is the ' Dictionnaire
des Athees' (1799), by the enthusiastic atheist, P. S.
Marechal. Here Justin Martyr, Saint Augustine, Pas-
cal, Bossuet, Leibnitz, and the most virtuous and pious
men of all ages, are glorified as atheists. In partial
excuse it must be remembered that Reimann, in the
excess of his Protestant zeal, has enlarged his list of
atheists with Roman Catholic divines, and that Ro-
man Catholic writers have frequently relegated tlie re-
formers and other Protestant theologians to the same
category.

From the very rise of a specifically anti- atheistical
literature, the desire was manifested to trace the causes
of atheism, but the harsh and illiberal mode of viewing
differences of opinion so long and widely prevalent, had
a very injurious effect on the investigation. Much that
is excellent on this subject will be found vigorously stated
by Prof J. S. Blackie in his ' Natural History of Atheism '
(1877)-

The question, whether or not atheism is compatible
with morality and with political security and prosperity,
was keenly and fully discussed in numerous writings
published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The history of this controversy, which is a remarkable
testimony to the intellectual influence of Machiavelli
and Bayle, deserves to be written. It seems quite for-
gotten and unknown at present.

In note II. of Appendix to ' Theism,' I have indicated
the works in which the relation of religion to morality
seems to me to have been most thoughtfully discussed.
Reference may also be made to the paper by W. H.
Mallock on " Modern Atheism : its Attitude towards
Morality," in the 'Contemporary Review,' Jan. 7, 1877.

Appendix: Note V. 459

Note V., page 44.
Laxge's History of Materialism.

The only general History of Materialism worthy of
mention is the 'Geschichte des Materialismus ' of F. A.
Lange. Few works in the department of philosophy
have recently attracted so much attention or been so
highly praised.

It everywhere shows clearness, vigour, and critical
acuteness of intellect, a wide acquaintance with the
positive sciences, a competent knowledge of the writings
of the chief ancient and modern materialists, and the
power of natural and spirited expression. It has no
claim, however, to be considered as in any sense an
epoch - making book, and is not without great faults.
Strictly speaking, it is not a history of materialism, but
a history of science, written on the assumption that the
whole world of knowledge can alone be explained by
matter and mechanism. It is, to a far larger extent, an
exposition of the theories and a discussion of the prob-
lems which seem to its author to bear on materialism,
than an account and criticism of directly materialistic
speculations. It nowhere gives evidence of original
research or great erudition, and has thrown little new
light on any period of the history the course of which
it traces. The view which it presents of the history of
the opposition to materialism is most inadequate through-
out. The ability of materialists and the worth of their
writings are, in general, overestimated.

The work is divided into two books, the one devoted
to materialism before Kant, and the other to materialism

4^0 Anti-Theistic Theories.

since Kant. The former book contains four sections.
The first section treats of materialism in antiquity, or
rather in classical antiquity, for nothing is said about
the materialism of China or India, or any other nation
than Greece and Rome. The special subjects of its five
chapters are — the atomism of Democritus ; the sensa-
tionalism of the Sophists and the ethical materialism of
Aristippus ; the reaction of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
against materialism and sensationalism; the doctrine of
Epicurus; and the poem of Lucretius. The second
section is occupied with the transition period, which
extends from the decay of the ancient civilisation to
Bruno, Bacon, and Descartes. The third section deals
with the materialism of the seventeenth century, and
has three chapters, which are devoted respectively to
Gassendi, as the restorer of Epicureanism ; to Hobbes ;
and to Boyle, Newton, Locke, and Toland. The fourth
section treats of the materialism of the eighteenth cen-
tury. It contains, first, an account of the influence of
English materialism on France and Germany; next,
an exposition of the materialistic views of La Mettrie ;
then an analysis of Holbach's ^ System of Nature ; '
and finally, an estimate of the reaction against material-
ism in Germany — an estimate which takes into account
the philosophy of Leibnitz, Wolfianism, and German
Spinozism.

The second book of Lange's ' History of Materialism '
is likewise divided into four sections. Section first
discusses the Kantian philosophy in its relation to
materialism, and then describes the phases of the so-
called philosophical materialism propagated by Feuer-
bach, Max Stirner, Biichner, Moleschott, and Czolbe.
Section second consists of four chapters, which have for

Appendix: Note V. 461

their subjects the bearing of materiaHsm on exact re-
search, the relation between matter and force, scientific
cosmogony, and Darwinism and teleology. The third
section treats of man's place in the animal world, the
relation of brain and soul, scientific psychology, the
physiology of the organs of sense, and the world as
representation. The last section deals with ethical
materialism and religion.

The most general results at which Lange arrives are,
that there is no genuine science except that which
explains phenomena in terms of matter and motion ;
that all our mental capacities, and even the laws of
intuition and thought, must be traceable to the elements
and organisation of the brain; that all material objects,
including the brain and the organs by which we perceive,
think, and will, are mere phenomena or experiences;
that no other world can be known by us than the phe-
nomenal and empirical world, which must be elucidated
by materialism and mechanism ; that philosophy is not
science, and has nothing to do with truth, but should be
cultivated as a poetry of notions ; that religion is essential
to human nature, but must be entirely severed from
belief; and that philosophy and religion, when thus
understood, will afford a solid basis for moral and
aesthetic culture, secure social progress, and vastly
benefit humanity. The doctrine composed of these
propositions has been actually hailed by a rather numer-
ous class of persons as itself a philosophy which triumph-
antly refutes materialism, and worthily completes the
work of Kant. But in spite of their noisy and foolish
applause, I venture to affirm that if German philosophy
should have for its ultimate outcome this conglomerate
of materialism, scepticism, and nonsense, it will have to

462 Anti-TIieistic Theories.

be regarded as the greatest fiasco the world has ever wit-
nessed.

Lange's history has been translated into English by
jNIr Thomas, and into French by Professor Nolen. The
French translator is the author of three able articles on
the book — two essays published in the 'Revue Philo-
sophique' (October and December 1877), and a memoir
read before the Academie des Sciences, Morales, et
Politiques, and published in a separate form (Paris,
Reinwald & Co., 1877). Vaihinger's ' Hartmann, Diih-
ring, und Lange ' is an important and instructive book,
although its author is far too enthusiastic an admirer of
Lange.

Note VI., page 47.
Chinese Materialism.

The essay of Yang Choo was translated into English
by Dr Legge in the prolegomena to the edition of ' Men-
cius,' contained in his Chinese classics. The works of
Licius, to whom it owes its preservation and transmis-
sion, have recently been completely translated into
German by Ernest Faber, in his ' Naturalismus bei den
alten Chinesen ' (1877).

There is said to be comparatively little theoretical
materialism in China, although practical materialism is
nowhere more prevalent. We know, however, very little
about the course of Chinese thought from the eleventh
century to the present time. Probably Chinese scholars
have at length done something like justice to the ancient

Appendix: Note VII. 463

classics of the celestial empire. If so, it is extremely to
be desired that they would now direct their attention to
the study of its later literature and philosophy.

Note VI I. , page 49.
Hindu Materialism.

The Charvaka system is described in the ' Sarva-Dar-
sana-Sangraha/ which has been translated into English
by Professor Cowell. The part of the work which
relates to the Charvaka doctrine will be found in the
'Pandit,' vol. ix., No. 103, pp. 162-166.

x\ll the Hindu systems of philosophy, except Vedant-
ism, expressly teach the eternity of a material principle
from which the universe has been evolved, but they also
teach the eternity of soul. The Vaiseshika system is
a physical philosophy based on an atomic theory. It
explains all material objects, and changes by the aggre-
gation, disintegration, and redintegration of uncaused,
eternal, imperceptible, indivisible atoms ; but it differs
from the atomism of Democritus in at least two respects
— it assigns to the atoms qualitative distinctions, and it
does not represent them as capable of constituting souls.
It is doubtful whether or not its founder, Kanada, and
some of his followers, believed in a supreme spirit. Each
soul was supposed to be eternal, and infinitely extended
or ubiquitous, although only knowing, feeling, and act-
ing where the body is. The Vaiseshika aphorisms of
Kanada, with comments from two Hindu expositors,

464 Anti-TJieistic Theories,

have been translated by Professor A. E. Gongh (Benares,
1873). For general accounts of the system, consult
Colebrooke's ' Essays,' and Monier Williams's ' Indian
Wisdom.'

The Sankhya system is atheistical, and approaches
nearly to materialism, notwithstanding that it affirms
the eternity of innumerable distinct souls. It assigns
activity and self-consciousness not to soul but to nature.
Its general doctrines may be thus summarised : i". Its
aim is to make impossible human pain by arresting the
course of transmigration. 2°. It professes to accom-
plish this by means of science. 3°. It represents science
as consisting of a thorough knowledge of the developed
principle or the world, of the undeveloped principle or
nature, and of the soul. 4°. It also represents it as a
knowledge of twenty-five elements of things and cate-
gories of intelligence, which may, however, be all reduced
to nature and soul. 5°. It expresses the relations of the
twenty-five principles to one another in the following
formula : " Nature, root of all, is no product ; seven
principles are products, and productive; sixteen are
products only ; soul is neither a product nor productive."

The chief sources of information as to the Sankhya
philosophy are accessible to students unacquainted with
Sanscrit. Most of the Sutras of Kapila have been trans-
lated into French by B. St Hilaire, in the ' Memoires de
rinstitut' for 1852. There is an English translation of
the first book, as also of a Hindu commentary on it, by
Dr Ballantyne. Of the valuable production called the
Karika, there are no less than five European translations
— Lassen's, Panthier's, Windischman's, Colebrooke's, and
St Hilaire's. The volume which contains Colebrooke's
translation comprises also two commentaries on tlie

Appendix: Note VI I L 465

Karika, — one by Professor H. H. Wilson ; and another,
which he has rendered from the vernacular into Eng-
lish, and is, consequently, a book of the highest im-
portance to a student of the Sankhya system. It was
published in 1837, under the auspices of the Oriental
Society.

There is an article by Dr Muir, on " Indian Material-
ists," in the * Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol.
xix.

Note VIII. , page 54.
Early Greek Materialism.

See Mullach's ' Fragmenta Philosophorum Grae-
corum,' pp. 340-377, for what remains of the writings
of Democritus. The accounts of his system given by
Hegel, Zeller, Lange, Grote, and Ferrier may be speci-
fied as of exceptional ability and interest.

Lange connects Empedocles with Democritus, on the
ground that he was the first to put forth the idea of
the gradual natural development of organised beings.
Anaximander is better entitled to this distinction. His
conception of development was also much more like
Darwin's than was that of Empedocles, inasmuch as it
supposed an advance from simple to complex forms, or a
process of differentiation, whereas the Empedoclean view
was that of a combination of heterogeneous organs. If
the great merit of a biological hypothesis, however, be,
as Lange fancies, the setting aside of the idea of final
causes, the latter notion may claim a certain superiority :
2 G

466 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

indeed, from this point of view, absurdity itselt is an
advantage. A natural orderly development cannot pos-
sibly help to disprove the existence of a final cause or of
a supreme reason.

I have elsewhere had occasion to make the following
remarks regarding the two philosophers above men-
tioned : '' Anaximander, one of the earliest of Greek
philosophers, working out his idea of the Infinite or
Unconditioned being the first principle of the universe,
arrived both at a sort of rude nebular hypothesis and a
sort of rude development hypothesis. From the aireipov,
or primitive unconditioned matter, through an inherent
and eternal energy and movement, the two original con-
traries of heat and cold separate : what is cold settles
down to the centre, and so forms the earth ; what is hot
ascends to the circumference, and so originates the bright,
shining, fiery bodies of heaven, which are but the frag-
ments of what once existed as a complete shell or
sphere, but in time burst and broke up, and so gave
rise to the stars. The action of the sun's heat on the
watery earth next generated films or bladders, out of
which came different kinds of imperfectly organised
beings, which were gradually developed into the ani-
mals which now live. Man's ancestors were fishlike
creatures which dwelt in muddy waters, and only, as
the sun slowly dried up the earth, became gradually
fitted for life on dry land. A similar view was held by
the poet, priest, prophet, and philosopher Empedocles.
He taught that out of the four elements of earth, air,
fire, and water, and under the moving power of Love
resisting Hate, plants, animals, and man were in suc-
cession, and after many an eftbrt, and many a futile

Appendix: Note IX. 467

conjunction of organs, generated and elaborated into
their present shapes."— ' Philosophy of History,' pp. 22,
23, where the authorities for these statements are in-
dicated.

Note IX., page 73.
Epicurean Materialism.

For Epicurus and his doctrines our chief sources of
information are the writings of Diogenes Laertius,
Lucretius, and Cicero. In the general history of phil-
osophy by Maurice, Lewes, Zeller, Ueberweg, &c., Epi-
cureanism is well discussed : also in Lange's ' Geschichte
des Materialismus,' and Carrau's ' La Morale Utilitaire '
(1875). But probably the most important work on the
subject is Guyau's ' La ]\Iorale d' Epicure et ses rapports
avec les doctrines contemporaines' (1878).

The study of Lucretius owes much in this country to
Munro's masterly edition of the ' De rerum natura.' The
literature regarding the greatest poet of materialism is
extensive. I must be content to specify the magnificent
essay on the genius of Lucretius in Professor Sellar's
'Roman Poets of the Republic;' the thoughtful and
beautiful little treatise of Professor Veitch, entitled
' Lucretius and the Atomic Theory \ ' and the interesting
volume by ]\Ir Mallock in Blackwood's " Ancient Classics
for English Readers."

468 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

Note X., page 75.
Materialism in the Middle Ages.

Lange devotes eighty pages of his ' History of Mate-
rialism ' to the middle ages. He presents to us in them,
however, instead of a properly historical narrative and
exposition, merely general dissertations on the relation
of the monotheistic religions to materialism — on the
Aristotelian doctrine of matter and form and its influence
on scholasticism — and on the return of materiaHstic views
with the revival of the sciences. It may be a matter
of opinion whether these dissertations are profound or
superficial, clear or confused ; but no person who has
made any study of medieval history is likely to regard
them as learned. The author obviously knew nothing
whatever at first hand, and little even at second hand,
concerning medieval writers. Hence he substitutes for
them Humboldt and Liebig, J. S. Mill, Sir W. Hamilton,
Trendelenburg, Fortlage, &c.

A history of theoretical materialism in the middle
ages could not be written, for the simple reason that
there was none to write. A historical account might
have been given, however, of the course of medieval
thought respecting the nature of matter and the problem
of its eternity or non- eternity ; the materialistic views
which were entertained as to the character and origin
of life and soul might have been indicated; and the
manifestations of ethical materialism during the period
might have been described. A considerable amount
of information as to the discussion of the problem of
the eternity and non -eternity of matter will be found

Appendix : Note XL 469

in Rabbi Schmiedl's ' Studien ' and in Ivaiifmann's
' Attributenlehre.'

Note XI., page %-^.

Materialism of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries.

Lange's account of the relation of Gassendi to mate-
rialism seems to me to be one-sided. The learned and
worthy priest, by distinctly maintaining that the atoms
of matter were not eternal, and by elaborately arguing
that they merely explained physical things — by repre-
senting them as created ex nihilo by the Divine Will —
and by strenuously defending both the immateriality and
the immortality of the soul, — did at least as much to
dissociate atomism from materialism as to further the
cause of materialism by his atomism. He may be fairly
held to have been rather the precursor of that long
series of rational assailants of materialism, which in-
cluded in England such men as Cudworth, Henry
More, John Smith, Richard Bentley, &c., of whom,
strangely enough, Lange appears never to have heard
— than the coryphceuG of modern materialism itself.
The account given of the system of Gassendi by
Damiron in his 'Essai sur I'Histoire de la Philosophie
en France au xvii® siecle,* (t. i.), is fuller and truer.

Lange does not seem to have been aware of the
attempts made by Overton, Dodwell, and Coward, dur-
ing the seventeenth century and the early years of the
eighteenth century, to prove the soul material and

470 Anti-Theistic Theories.

naturally mortal, or of the discussions to which these
attempts gave rise.

It is a pleasure to be able to recognise that Lange's
account of the French materialism of the eighteenth cen-
tury is at once extremely able and generally correct.

Among the French writers belonging to the latter half
of the eighteenth century who may fairly be classed as
atheists were, besides La Mettrie (i 709-1 751) and Von
Holbach (i 723-1 789), Diderot (17 13-1784), Helvetius
(1715-1771), D'Alembert (1717-1783), Lalande (1732-
1807), Naigeon (1738-1810), Condorcet (1743-1794),
and Marechal (i 750-1803). La Mettrie, Diderot, Hel-
vetius, and D'Alembert may be regarded as forming an
earlier, and Lalande, Naigeon, Condorcet, and Marechal
a later group, with Von' Holbach as the connecting
link.

Diderot's scepticism assumed the form of materialistic
atheism, or materialistic pantheism, only after he be-
came an associate of Holbach. He is the subject of
two elaborate and excellent works — the one by Rosen-
kranz and the other by J. Morley. Almost half a
century ago, when the materials for forming an esti-
mate of his character were much less abundant than
now, and wholly unassorted, it was divined by Mr
Carlyle with the true insight of genius, and portrayed
with a skill which has not since been matched.

Helvetius avoided a frank avowal of materialism, but
his entire doctrine — one deeply stained with sensual and
selfish principles — implied it. Perhaps the best exposi-
tion and criticism of it will be found in Cousin's ' Hist,
de la Phil. Mor. au dix-huitieme siecle,' legons iv., v.

D'Alembert gave expression to his views regarding
religion only in his private conversation and correspon-

Appendix : Note XL 47 1

dence. He had a clear perception of some of the diffi-
culties to an acceptance of materialism, And hence,
notwithstanding his intimacy with Diderot, his unbelief
assumed rather an agnostic than a materialistic form.
He was the only morally worthy, or even morally decent
man, belonging to the older atheistical group. Its three
other members had some good qualities, but they were
shamelessly impure, licentious, and untruthful. It is a
significant but lamentable fact that sympathy with their
sceptical views should have of late led many literary
men to eulogise their characters, to exaggerate their
good qualities, and to ignore or excuse their vices.

Lalande is known almost entirely by his distinguished
services to science ; but he actively assisted his friend
Marechal in propagating atheism. He contributed
largely to the ' Dictionnaire des Athees.'

Condorcet — a man of noble and generous nature — was
an enthusiast for the philosophy which explains every-
thing by matter and sensation. In my article " Con-
dorcet," in the ' Ency. Brit.,' a general view of his life
and teaching will be found, with references to the best
sources of information regarding him.

Naigeon and Marechal were fanatical preachers of
the gospel according to Diderot and Holbach. The
numerous writings of both are at present deservedly for-
gotten ; but of course, in a time when the literary dis-
coveries of materialists are not less remarkable than
their scientific achievements, no one can be sure but
that Naigeon may be speedily announced to have been
equal to Newton — and Marechal to have really been,
what he aspired to be, another Lucretius.

Laplace was reputed to be an atheist by some of his
contemporaries. In his writings he seems to have stu-

472 Anti-Theistic Theories.

diously refrained from the expression of religious opin-
ion ; and this, it must be remembered, at a time when
the profession of atheism was a passport to popularity.

In the ' De la Nature' (4 tom. 1761-66) and other
works of Robinet, an ingenious and grandiose theory
of evolution was expounded. Although not materialistic,
and still less atheistic, it was of such a character that it
must have helped to swell the stream of eighteenth-
century materialism. It has been well treated of by
Damiron in his ' Me'moires pour servir a I'histoire de la
Philosophic au xviii^ siecle,' and by Rosenkranz in the
' Z\ Der Gedanke ' B^. i.

Note XIL, page 86.
La Mettrie.

The Eloge of Frederick the Great on La Mettrie is
reprinted in Assezat's edition of ' L'homme machine '
(1865). M. Assezat initiated the process of rehabihtat-
ing the memory of La Mettrie. Lange followed in 1866.
M. Neree Quepat published in 1873 ^is ' Essai sur La
Mettrie, sa vie et ses ceuvres.' Although it gives far too
favourable a view, both of the conduct of La Mettrie
and of his writings, it can be commended as an industri-
ously and intelligently composed production. Du Bois-
Reymond's eulogium was pronounced before the Royal
Academy of Prussia in 1875.

Lange, in the chapter dedicated to La Mettrie, has
collected, reproduced in a clear and condensed form,
and skilfully combined the most plausible and judicious

Appendix: Note XI 11. 473

views enunciated in that author's writings. This gives
as result a most flattering reflection of La Mettrie's char-
acter as a thinker. Unfortunately the real La Mettrie
was rambling, incoherent, and self- contradictory to the
last degree. It would, m consequence, not be difficult
to make about as truthful a picture of him as Lange's,
and from materials Hkewise supplied by his own books,
yet which should represent him, in accordance with the
description of D'Argens, as "fou, au pied de la lettre."
"Sa tete," says Diderot, "est si troublee et ses idees sont
a tel point decousues, que, dans la meme page, une
assertion sense'e est heurtee par une assertion folle, et
une assertion folle par une assertion sense'e."

Note XIIL, page 96.

MiRABAUD AND VON HOLBACH.

J. B. de Mirabaud died in 1760, ten years before the
publication of the ' Systeme de la Nature ' which bore
his name on its title-page. Naigeon says that he had
seen a MS. of Mirabaud, entitled ' Des Lois du monde
physique et du monde morale,' in which views similar to
those in the * Systeme ' were advocated. If this state-
ment could be relied on, the conjecture nn'ght be per-
mitted that the MS. was made use of by Holbach and
his friends. Mirabaud was, undoubtedly, a materialist
and an enemy of Christianity, although, perhaps, not an
atheist. His ' Sentiments des philosophes sur la nature
de Tame' (1743), and ' Le Monde, son origine et son
antiquite' (1751), show quite clearly to what school of

474 Anti-Theistic Theories.

thought he belonged. His Hterary reputation was chiefly
due to his translation of Tasso's * Jerusalem Delivered,'
pubhshed in 1724. He was perpetual secretary of the
French Academy from 1742 until his death. There is
an account of him by D'Alembert in the first volume of
the ' Histoire des membres de I'Acade'mie frangaise.'

Von Holbach was at least the chief author of the
' System of Nature.' He was a diligent and ready writer,
and must have done some good service by his French
translations of German scientific works. The anti-reli-
gious publications of which he was in w^hole or in part
the author are very numerous. Most of them were pub-
lished by Michael Rey of Amsterdam. They all ap-
peared either without name or under false names. A
list of them is given in Barbier's ' Dictionary of Anony-
mous Works.'

Lange's account of the 'System of Nature' is elaborate
and laudatory. Mr Morley's, in his ' Diderot/ is of a
very similar character. N. S. Bergier's ' Examen du
Materialism e,' 2 tom., 17 71, is a good refutation.

Note XIV., page loi.

English Materialism in the First Half of the
Nineteenth Century.

Dr Erasmus Darwin's ' Zoonomia, or the Laws of Or-
ganic Life,' 2 vols., does not strictly fall to be mentioned
here, as it was published in 1794-96 ; but, along with the
* Botanic Garden ' and ' Phytologia,' it did much to keep

Appendix : Note XIV. 475

materialism in existence during the earlier part of the
century. Its fundamental idea was that vegetables and
animals originated in living filaments, susceptible of irri-
tation. Irritability develops, so argued Dr Darwin, into
sensibility, and sensibility into perception, memory, and
reason. The theory was annihilated by Dr Thomas
Brown in his ' Observations on the Zoonomia,' Edinb.,
1798.

Dr Erasmus Darwin was very famous in his day,
although he never attained, of course, the height of repu-
tation which has been reached by his grandson, Dr
Charles Darwin. His mind was in many respects similar
in character, the chief difference being that his fancy was
even more fertile and bold, and that he was less patient
and methodical in the investigation of facts. Regarding
him see the following work, — ' Erasmus Darwin, by Ernst
Krause, tr. by W. S. Dallas. With a Preliminary Notice
by Charles Darwin : 1879.'

The ' Essay on the Origin and Prospects of ]\Ian ' (3
vols,, 1 831), by JNIr Thomas Hope, is an almost unread-
able production. Its sentences often defy alike logical
and grammatical analysis. How the author of ' Anas-
tasius ' could have written in so trailing, involved, and
obscure a fashion is a mystery. The existence of God
as the inconceivable primary cause, from which all other
causes and effects proceed by way of radiation, emana-
tion, or evolution, is affirmed; but, if there be some
theism or pantheism in this, the work otherwise seems
to be thoroughly materialistic. A single sentence will,
perhaps, be a sufficient specimen both of its style and of
its science. In answer to the fundamental question,
" On what depends, between the bodies merely inorganic
and lifeless and the bodies organic and living, the difter-

4/6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

ence which leaves in the former a total absence of organ-
isation, life, and growth, and to the latter first gives the
possession of these new attributes?" Mr Hope writes
thus : " It only depends on this, that in the former
bodies, when their first molecules, from opposite sides
driven together and meeting, are made to consolidate
and cohere sufficiently to have of the new substances
still fluid that enter and penetrate between them, by the
pressure of electricity of a combining sort and of cold
from without, and by the resistance or counter-pressure
of the former solids from within, a portion again stopped,
condensed, congealed, and made to combine and con-
solidate, of these new substances from without, during
their consolidation the pressure on the former ones
within already consolidated, so exceeds in these former
ones from within their elasticity or power to yield to that
pressure of these outer ones, without being by it broken,
dispersed, and decombined, as not to be able themselves
to remain solid and cohering, while these new ones are
added to them ; — as we see in stones which when hu-
midity driven is there by combining electricity and cold
congealed, it soon makes them burst and themselves
again decombine ; whereas in the latter bodies, when of
the new fluids driven in them a portion is stopped, con-
gealed, consolidated and made to cohere together, the
extension which these new fluids experience in being
consolidated in crystalline forms, disperses not by its
pressure the former solids, nor decombines these entirely,
but, by the elasticity these possess, only makes them also
in their turn extend, till by their extension they again
exert over the new ones consolidating a counter-pressure,
sufficient to make these also cohere even with them-
selves, and thus gradually increase the general mass of

Appendix: Note XIV. 477

substances solid and cohering, in so doing, make it ex-
hibit the phenomena called of life and growth." — Vol.

ii- PP- 35> 36.

Shortly after the book appeared, Mr Carlyle justly
described it as "a monstrous Anomaly, where all sciences
are heaped and huddled together, and the principles of
all are, with a childlike innocence, plied hither and
thither, or wholly abolished in case of need ; Avhere the
First Cause is figured as a huge Circle, with nothing to
do but radiate ' gravitation ' towards its centre ; and so
construct a Universe, wherein all, from the lowest cucum-
ber with its coolness, up to the highest seraph with his
love, were but 'gravitation,' direct or reflex, 'in more
or less central globes ; '" "a general agglomerate of all
facts, notions, whims, and observations, as they lie in
the brain of an English gentleman : all these throw^n into
the crucible, and if not fused, yet soldered or conglutin-
ated with boundless patience; and now tumbled out
here, heterogeneous, amorphous, unspeakable, a world's
wonder."

Mr Hope's work is frequently referred to, and occa-
sionally quoted, in the ' Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation ' (1844). The existence of a personal Deity
is distinctly recognised in this latter work, but all the
forms of life and mind are taught to have been neces-
sarily evolved from primary nebulous matter. The
theory which it expounds is substantially the theory
of evolution at present prevalent. It was criticised by
Sir D. Brewster in the * North British Review,' No. 3 ;
by Prof. Dod in an elaborate article which was repub-
lished in the second series of the 'Princeton Theological
Essays;' by Mr Hugh Miller in 'Footprints of the
Creator;' by Prof. Sedgwick in the 'Edinburgh Re-

47^ Anti-TJieistic Theories.

view,' No. 82 ; and by Dr Whewell in ' Indications of a
Creator,' &c. It is, perhaps, worth noting that Karl
Vogt translated the 'Vestiges' into German in 1847.

In volumes i. and ii. of the ' Oracle of Reason,' pub-
lished in 1842 and 1843, there is a series of forty-eight
papers on " The Theory of Regular Gradation," in which
it is maintained that *'all the facts which form the
sciences tend to the conclusion that the inherent pro-
perties of ' dull matter,' as some brig/if portions of it have
designated it, are good and sufficient to produce all the
varied, complicated, and beautiful phenomena of the
universe ; " that " matter can make men and women, and
every other natural phenomenon — unassisted, undirected,
and uncontrolled." In these papers atheism is openly
avowed. Their author was a Mr William Chilton.

In Prof J. S. Blackie's ' Natural History of Atheism,'
pp. 221-247, the materialistic and atheistic views of Mr
Atkinson and Miss Martin eau are stated and criticised.

Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer, ex-
pounded in his ' Principles of Nature and her Revela-
tions,' 2 vols., the doctrine that all matter is gradually
advancing under the influence of an Organiser towards a
spiritual state, and that souls have been generated from
matter until they became substantive existences which
will survive the death of the body, and pass from lower
to higher stages of being, according to eternal laws of
progression.

Many so-called spiritualists are materialists, and even
atheists, teaching that all things originate in nature, and
are governed by physical necessity. Materialism, al-
though incompatible with theism and rational religion,
is quite consistent with mythology and superstition.

Appendix : Note XV. 479

Note XV., page 131.
Recent Materialism.

Among the recent defenders of materialism in Ger-
many, Moleschott, Vogt, Biichner, Lowenthal, Haeckel,
Diihring, and Strauss may be named. Jacob Moles-
chott's ' Kreislauf des Lebens ' (Circulation of Life), pub-
lished in 1852, was the first systematic exposition of
what is called scientific materialism. It was written in
a popular style, and contained a considerable amount of
interesting biological information, but contributed noth-
ing to the proof of the fundamental dogmas of materi-
alism ; these, indeed, it borrowed from that feeble pro-
duction of Ludwig Feuerbach, which it pronounces to be
"the immortal critique of religion.''

Charles Vogt threw himself with great vigour and
violence into the conflict excited by Moleschott's book,
and by a celebrated discourse of Rudolph Wagner " On
the Creation of Man and the Substance of the Soul"
(1854). His 'Lectures on Man, his place in creation
and in the history of the earth,' published in 1863,
have been translated into English, and show well what
manner of person he is.

Louis Biichner has been probably the most efficient
and successful of the popularisers of contemporary ma-
terialism. His ' Matter and Force ' (1855), ' Nature and
Science' (1862), and 'Man's Place in Nature' (1869),
have passed through many editions, and been translated
into most European languages. The first mentioned of
these books seems to have almost taken the place formerly
filled by Holbach's 'System of Nature.' There have been

480 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

many replies to it; that of M. Janet, 'Materialism of the
Present Day' — of which there is a good translation by
Gustave Masson — combines most happily, perhaps, ele-
gance as to form with thoroughness as to substance.

Edward Lowenthal regards even the authors just men-
tioned as neither sufficiently materialistic nor specula-
tively consistent, seeing that they affirm the coexistence
of two principles — matter and force. He maintains that
matter is alone primordial, and that force is merely a
product of atomic aggregation. He also labours to con-
struct "a religion without a creed" on his materialism,
and to form an "international freethinkers' association,"
from which he expects great results; in a word, he
aspires to be the founder of what he calls " Cogitanten-
thum " (Thinkingdom), which is to take the place of
Christendom. His 'System and History of Naturalism,'
first published in 1861, is now in its fifth edition. The
system is very feebly and loosely constructed, and the
history is very inaccurate.

Ernst Haeckel is the most enthusiastic and influen-
tial of German Darwinists. His reputation as a " mor-
phologist" and "zoologist" stands very high. He is a
thorough materialist and atheist, but he prefers to call
himself a monist. He regards the eternity of matter as
a law of nature, and spontaneous generation as a scien-
tific certainty. He gets enraged when he hears of final
causes; and he tells those who dare to doubt of the ape-
origin of humanity, that "it is an interesting and in-
structive circumstance that those men are chiefly indig-
nant at the discovery of the natural development of man
from the monkey, between whom and our common
tertiary ancestors there is the least observable difference,
whether as to intellectual capacity or cerebral character-

Appendix: Note XV. 481

istics." His ' General Morphology,' published in 1S66,
his * Natural History of Creation,' of which the first
edition appeared in 1S68, and his 'Anthropogenic'
(1874), are the works in which he has expounded his
so-called monism. The second and third of them have
been translated into English. For a good general ex-
position of his system, based on the ' Natural History of
Creation,' see ]\I. Le'on Dumont's ' Haeckel et la the'orie
de revolution en Allemagne.'

Eugene Diihring has endeavoured in various works to
establish and apply a so-called "philosophy of reality"
which is essentially materialistic. He gave a general
exposition of his system in a 'Course of Philosophy'
published in 1875. The work has considerable merits;
but, besides other defects, it has the fatal fault of seldom
giving proofs either of its affirmations or its negations.
The book of Hans Vaihinger, mentioned in Note V.,
will be found highly useful to the student of Diihring's
philosophy.

David F. Strauss closed his literary career by a " Con-
fession," in which materiahsm and pantheism were blended
together, and Darwinism was accepted as the new and
true Gospel. The celebrity which he had acquired, and
his talent as a writer, w^ere the chief reasons wdiy this
confession — 'The Old and the New Faith,' 1873 —
excited a remarkable amount of attention. As regards
real intellectual substance it is poor, superficial, and
confused. The " new faith " is a faith as old as specu-
lative error. As held by Strauss it is an unreasoned
faith in the eternity of matter, in spontaneous genera-
tion, in the incarnation of the ape, and in the truth of
optimism, although the world is ruled by blind and aim-
less, unconscious and unmoral forces. Its central posi-
2 H

482 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

tive and constructive idea is that the universe — the
totality of existence designated nature — is the only God
which the modern mind enlightened by science can
consent to worship. Among the multitude of reviews
which the book called forth, those of Rauwenhoff and
Nippold, of Huber, of Vera, of Henry B. Smith ('Philo-
sophy and Faith,' pp. 443-488), of J. Hutchison Stirling
('Athenccum,' June 1873), ^^^d of Ulrici, might be speci-
fied. Ulrici's article — an annihilating and unanswerable
criticism of the philosophical postulates and dogmas
of the latest faith of Strauss — has been translated into
English, with an introduction, by Dr Krauth.

Materialism has now for almost thirty years been
spreading more and more widely in Germany, with what
results the future will show. It "has owed its success to
the spirit of the times ; not to any intellectual superiority
of its advocates over its opponents. Schaller, Lotze,
J. H. Fichte, Ulrici, Bona Meyer, Huber, Hoffmann,
Froschammer, Fabri, Weiss, Wigand, and a host of others,
have done all that could be desired in the way both of
repelling and of returning its attacks. There is consider-
able exaggeration current as to the extent, and especially
as to the quality, of its conquests. The highest class
of German thinkers is chiefly composed of those who
regard materialism as the least satisfactory of philoso-
phical systems.

In France scarcely any work of merit has recently ap-
peared in defence of materialism, if positivism be not
counted as materialism. The communistic conspirator,
A. Blanqui, wrote a curious little book entitled 'L'Eter-
nite par les astres, hypotese astronomique ' (1872), which
showed very considerable Hterary talent, and which

Appendix : Note X V. 48 3

was very ingeniously reasoned out from the assumption
that matter is infinite both in extension and duration.
He displayed in it his characteristic disregard of the
nature of the consequences of his principles. Thus he
contended that, since there must be all possible com-
binations of worlds if matter be absolutely infinite, there
must be many worlds like the present — stars with, for
example, duplicates in them of France, Paris, the Com-
nmne, and Blanqui, and even of all these at every stage
of their existence. He neither proved, however, that
matter is doubly infinite, nor that we have such a com-
prehension of absolute as to be able to deduce from it
definite inferences.

M. Lefevre, in his ' La Philosophic ' (1879), ^^^s written
the history of philosophy from a materialistic point, and
given a general exposition of the system of materialism.

In England, Mr Herbert Spencer, Professors Huxley
and Tyndall, and a few other writers of distinguished
philosophical or scientific talents, have done far more to
diffuse materialism than any of those who are willing to
avow themselves materialists. Never was materialism
more fortunate than when it secured to itself the sym-
pathy and support of minds so vigorous and so richly
gifted. It is quite incorrect, however, to say that in this
country the foremost scientific men have, as a body, gone
over to the materialistic camp or to the side of scepti-
cism. This assertion was lately made by Mr Froude;
and it called forth from Professor Tait the followincr
unanswerable reply : " When we ask of any competent
authority, who were the * advanced,' the 'best,' and the
'ablest' scientific thinkers of the immediate past (in
Britain), we cannot but receive for answer such names as

4S4 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

Brewster, Faraday, Forbes, Graham, Rowan Hamilton,
Herschel, and Talbot. This must be the case unless we
use the word science in a perverted sense. Which of
these great men gave up the idea that nature evidences
a designing mind? But perhaps Mr Froude refers to
the advanced thinkers still happily alive among us. The
names of the foremost among them are not far to seek.
But, unfortunately for his assertion, it is quite certain
that Andrews, Joule, Clerk- Maxwell, Balfour Stewart,
Stokes, William Thomson, and suchlike, have each and
all of them, when the opportunity presented itself, spoken
in a sense altogether different from that implied in Mr
Froude's article. Surely there are no truly scientific
thinkers in Britain farther advanced than these." See
'International Review 'for November 1878, iVrt. "Does
Humanity require a New Revelation?"

Among those who have combated materialism with
ability in publications written in English, the following
may be mentioned ; Dr L. S. Beale, Professor Bowen,
Dr Carpenter, President Chadbourne, Professor Cocker,
Rev. Joseph Cook, Principal Dawson, Dr Hickok, Dr
Hodge, Professor Le Conte, Professor Leebody, Presi-
dent M'Cosh, Dr Macvicar, Dr Martineau, Professor
Clerk - Maxwell, Professor Mivart, President Porter,
Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait, and Dr Hutchison
Stirling.

Appendix : Note XVI. 485

Note XVI. , page 163.

Materialism and Force.

Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait, in the preface
to the fifth edition of the ingenious and suggestive work
entitled ' The Unseen Universe,' say : "As professors of
natural philosophy we have one sad remark to make.
The great majority of our critics have exhibited almost
absolute ignorance as to the proper use of the term Force,
which has had one, and only one, definite scientific sense
since the publication of the ' Principia.' As such men are
usually among the exceptionally well educated, ignorance
of this important question must be all but universal.'*
The observation is probably only too true. And per-
haps professors of natural philosophy have themselves
contributed largely to the mental confusion which pre-
vails on the subject. The definitions and descriptions of
force given by writers on physics are conflicting enough
to explain and excuse almost any amount of ignorance
and error regarding it. Faraday tells us that " matter is
force;" Grove that "force is an affection of matter;"
and Dubois-Reymond that "force is nothing else than
an abortion of the irresistible tendency to personifica-
tion." Professor Moleschott declares that "force is
essential to matter;" Professor Spiller affirms that "no
material constituent of body is originally endowed with
force;" and Dr Winslow maintains that "matter is a
mere vehicle which possesses and holds force as a bladder
holds water or a sack meal." Professor Balfour Stewart
uses the word force as meaninsr " that which changes the

486 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

state of a body, whether that state be one of rest or of
motion ; " but Professor Barker means by it " motion
itself; " and Dr Bastian understands by it " a mode of
motion." If all professors of natural philosophy would
use the word Force, and, I may add, the word Energy,
in the same definite, intelligible, and self-consistent way
as Professors Stewart and Tait, Clerk-Maxwell and Sir
William Thomson, a vast amount of mental confusion
would speedily pass away. In this reference, a perusal
of Chap. III. of ' The Unseen Universe ' cannot be too
strongly recommended.

Both the scientific and the religious consequences of
error as to the signification and relationship of energy
and force may be very serious. To affirm of force what
is true of energy is as great a mistake as to confound the
birth-rate of a country with its population. In con-
sequence of this error, Mr Herbert Spencer has trans-
formed or transmogrified the grand law of the Conserva-
tion of Energy — the law that, " in any system of bodies
whatever, to which no energy is communicated by ex-
ternal bodies, and which parts with no energy to external
bodies, the sum of the various potential and kinetic
energies remains for ever unaltered" — into a so-called
law of the Persistence of Force — the dogma that " the
quantity of force remains always the same " — which
physical science wholly disowns. "The sole recorded
case," observe Professors Stewart and Tait, " of true per-
sistency or indestructibility of force which we recollect
having ever met with, occurs in connection with Baron
Munchausen's remarkable descent from the moon. It
is, no doubt, a very striking case ; but it is apparently
unique, and it was not subjected to scientific scrutiny."

Appendix: Note. XV I. 487

It is much to be regretted that professional critics and
popular writers should have so generally gone to Mr
Herbert Spencer's chapter on "The Persistence of Force"
for enlightenment as to the subject of which it treats,
although probably in no other eight consecutive pages in
the English language are there so many physical and
metaphysical errors combined. Many of these persons,
not having had their senses educated by appropriate
scientific instruction to discern between good and evil in
such matters, have been under the delusion that in per-
using the chapter indicated they were refreshing them-
selves with water drawn from the fountain of pure truth,
when they were really intoxicating themselves with " the
wine of the Borgias." The dreadful consequences which
have sometimes resulted from this mistake may be seen
exemplified in the case of " Physicus."

A number of Mr Spencer's errors regarding force are
well refuted by Professor Birks in his ' Modern Physical
Fatalism,' pp. 159-196.

On the nature and relationship of matter and force
the three following works are important : Harms, ' Philo-
sophische Einleitung in die Encyklopaedie der Physik ; '
Huber, * Die Forschung nach der Materie ; ' and Dauriac,
' Des Notions de matiere et de force dans les sciences de
la nature.*

488 Anti-Theistic Theories.

Note XVII., page 171.
Materialism and Life.

Materialism is obviously unproved so long as life is
not shown to be a property or an effect of matter. Life
has certainly not yet been shown to be either the one
or the other. "The present state of knowledge," says
Professor Huxley, in his article on ''• Biology," in the
* Encyclopsedia Britannica,' "furnishes us with no link
between the living and the not-living."

Numerous definitions have been given of life, but
even the best of these definitions appear to be seriously
defective. Biology has not yet succeeded in forming a
precise and accurate notion of what life is. Perhaps we
must be content to understand by it, so far as it falls
under the consideration of physical science, the cause of
the direction and co-ordination of the movements or
actions characteristic of bioplasmic matter.

Mr Herbert Spencer (Principles of Biology, vol. i. pp.
60, 61) has well indicated the unsatisfactoriness of the
definition of Schelling — " Life is the tendency to indi-
viduation:" of that of Richerand — "Life is a collection
of phenomena which succeed each other during a Hmited
time in an organised body ; " of that of De Blainville —
" Life is the twofold internal movement of composition
and decomposition, at once general and continuous ; "
and of that of Lewes — " Life is a series of definite and
successive changes, both of structure and composition,
which take place within an individual without destroying
its identity." Mr Spencer has also laboured to provide a
better definition j and some writers suppose that his sue-

Appendix: Note XVII, 489

cess has been almost complete. Thus Professor Bain
(Logic, Part 11. p. 258) says : "Choosing assimilation as
a characteristic fact of bodily life, and reasoning as an
example of mental life, and contrasting both with the
characters of dead matter, Mr Herbert Spencer arrives
at the following highly complex definition : i. Life con-
tains a process or processes of change. 2. The change
is not a simple or individual act, but a series or succession
of changes. 3. Life involves a plurality of simultaneotis
as well as successive changes. 4. The changes are
heterogeneous^ or various in character. 5. The various
changes all combine to a definite result. 6. Finally, the
changes are in correspondence with external coexistences
and sequences. In sum : Life is a set of changes, simul-
taneous and successive, combined to a definite result,
and in correspondence with external circumstances.
Or, in a briefer form, Life is the continuous adjustment
of internal relations to external relations. So carefully
has the comparison been conducted, that no exception
could be taken to any part of this definition. Every one
of the particulars occurs in all living bodies, and in no
kind of dead matter." This estimate I cannot but
regard as much too favourable. There is not a single
particular in ]\Ir Spencer's definition which is not as
characteristic of the action of a watch as of the life of
a plant or animal. His so called definition is a sort of
expression of what is common to the manifestations of
machinery, life, and mind ; but it gives us no informa-
tion either as to what mechanism, life, and thought are,
or as to how we are to distinguish them. It professes to
be a definition of life, but really leaves life wholly out of
account, in order to facilitate the work incumbent on a
materialistic philosophy. In fact, Mr Spencer has not

490 Anti-Theistic Theories.

sought a definition in a rational way. It is vain to
attempt to define life by generalising its own eff"ects.
Biologists of all schools have abandoned this method
of procedure as utterly unscientific, and now seek to
accomplish their aim by the experimental study of life
in its simplest forms. The true method to be followed
has perhaps never been so clearly traced as by the
illustrious French physiologist recently deceased, M.
Claude Bernard, in his 'Legons sur phenomenes de
la vie communs aux animaux et aux vegetaux' (1878).
M. Bernard has been often claimed as a materialist and
as a positivist; but, in reality, his profound physiological
science led him to results fatal both to materialism and
to positivism ; and a careful study of the work mentioned
will render impossible the acceptance of all definitions
of the kind to which that of Mr Spencer belongs — defi-
nitions based on a merely outside or superficial view of
the manifestations of life.

Science is not only entitled but bound to trace the
stream of life back as far as it can. The hypothesis of
Mr Darwin, that all terrestrial organisms may have ori-
ginated in a single primordial germ, which was produced
when the earth was fitted to receive it, is a perfectly
legitimate scientific hypothesis, although, of course, it
should not be believed until it is proved. Equally
legitimate in a scientific point of view is the hypothesis
that life did not originate on this earth, but has come to
it from remote and older worlds. This hypothesis has
been presented in two forms.

I. According to M. Edgar Quinet (La Creation, T.
ii. L. xi. ch. ii.), Professor Preyer (Deutsche Rundschau,
Heft 7), and Dr O. Zacharias (Athenaeum, Bd. i. pp.
413-429), life is not fixed and limited to certain points

Appendix: Note XVI I. 491

of space or periods of time ; is of a cosmical, not of a
terrestrial nature ; has been coeval with the universe ;
has passed from nebula to nebula; and has been de-
rived by the earth from the mass whence it was itself
detached. Professor Preyer, indeed, imagines that living
and organic existences preceded and deposited all dead
and. inorganic matter. Even when not urged in this
burlesque shape, the view that life has come to the earth
from the mass whence it was severed seems untenable.
Contemporary science is very far astray if our planet
has not passed through a condition in which its tem-
perature must have been fatal to all life.

2. According to Sir WilHam Thomson (Address to the
British Association in 187 1), and Helmholtz (Preface to
the second part of the first volume of the German
translation of Thomson and Tait's 'Natural Philosophy'),
life m.ay have been carried to our earth in the clefts or
crevices of meteoric stones — the fragments of shattered
worlds, once rich in vital forms. The attempt of
Zollner, in his work 'On Comets,' to show that this
conception is essentially unscientific, is extremely weak.
Of course the hypothesis does not explain the origin
of life, but only suggests that its origin may have to
be sought much further away than where scientists are
looking for it. This, however, is all that it proposes to
do. It does not profess, at least as stated by Sir William
Thomson, to be a theory of the origin of life, but only a
possible way of accounting for the origin of terrestrial
life. The objection that the heat of the meteoric stones
must have been incompatible with their conveyance of
life does not seem to have been substantiated. Ap-
parently the heat in a deep crevice of a large meteorite
would not be so intense as to destroy a living germ.

49- Anti-Theistic Theories.

But although the hypothesis is quite scientific in its
nature, and has not been shown to involve any physical
impossibility, no positive evidence has been produced
on behalf of it.

Many anti-theists in the present day feel constrained
by their inability to account, on purely physical prin-
ciples, for the life associated with matter, to maintain its
eternity. Thus some of those who trace it in the way
which has just been mentioned from our world to others,
forthwith conclude that it is coeval with matter, and that
both matter and life must be regarded as unoriginated.
They overlook that the life under consideration is life
which implies material conditions, and these of a kind
not necessarily involved in the very constitution of
matter; that it could only appear when the universe
was in a certain state of development ; that it could
not have existed, for example, in a nebula. To trace
life from world to world can never show it to be eternal,
if it can appear in no world which has not passed through
certain stages before reaching the condition in which
alone life can be realised. Besides, the assumption that
matter is eternal is unscientific and arbitrary.

The old hypothesis of a world-soul has also recently
been revived in various forms, and presented as an ex-
planation of the origination of life in individual organisms.
In this way materialism loses itself in pantheism, while
in no form is the hypothesis of a world-soul demanded
or supported by critically ascertained and scientifically
interpreted facts.

Then there are speculators who would efface the
distinction between the living and the dead, the organic
and the inorganic, by ascribing to every atom of matter
a small portion or faint degree of life. Those who pro-

Appendix: Note XV 11. 493

ceed thus take the suggestions of fancy for the findings
of reason; they abandon true science for a worthless
metaphysics — natural philosophy for Natufphilosopkie,
They manifestly leave the problem which they profess
to solve as mysterious as ever. What is commonly
called dead matter is certainly not alive in the same
sense as what is commonly called living matter; and
to call it alive in some other sense does not help us in
the least to understand how it can originate life in
the ordinary sense of the term. No real problem can
be solved by merely verbal artifices.

The only scientific proof of the materialistic concep-
tion of life would be the establishment of the hypo-
thesis of spontaneous generation, or, as it is now often
termed, "abiogenesis." M. Pouchet in France, and Dr
Bastian in England, have recently laboured to supply
the requisite proof. They have utterly failed, even in
the judgment of those who persist in believing with-
out proof in spontaneous generation. In ]\1. Pasteur's
' Memoire sur les Corpuscules organisees suspendus
dans I'Atmosphere ; ' in Prof. Tyndall's essays on " Dust
and Disease," and "Putrefaction and Infection;" in
Prof. Lister's " Contribution to the Germ Theory of
Putrefaction and other Fermentative Changes " in vol.
xxvii. of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh, &c., — ample evidence will be found for rejecting
the notion of spontaneous generation.

Several eminent scientific men, who are constrained
to admit that there is no experimental evidence that
life can arise save from antecedent life, notwithstanding,
believe that spontaneous generation actually occurred
in an inaccessible and exceptional past. Thus Prof.
Huxley, in his Address to the British Association, says :

494 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

" If it were given me to look beyond the abyss of
geologically recorded time to the still more remote
period when the earth was passing through physical and
chemical conditions, which it can no more see again
than a man can recall his infancy, I should expect to
be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from
non-living matter;" and Prof. Tyndall, also in an
Address to the British Association, declares : " By an
intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the experi-
mental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we
in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstand-
ing our professed reverence for its Creator, have hither-
to covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency
of all terrestrial life." The attitude of mind revealed by
these words is not a reasonable one. We cannot be
justified in believing a scientific hypothesis in favour of
which we fail to find a single relevant fact, while every
experiment undertaken to prove it ends in confirming
the rule of which it would be the violation. Our befief
in the continuity of nature must be conformed to our
knowledge of the continuity of experience. The right
of belief claimed by Professors Huxley and Tyndall is,
in this instance, a right to believe without evidence and
against evidence. It need scarcely be pointed out that
if matter could produce life, the improbability of its hav-
ing produced it only in a passing crisis of its history
must be regarded as enormous. What physical and
chemical forces did once, they would surely do often, if
not continually. Matter now has not lost any known
property or power which it possessed when in a cooling
state, nor has it been shown that its molecular constitu-
tion is greatly changed, while it is certainly better fitted
for the support of life. What reason is there for imag-

Appendix : Note X VII: 495

ining that it was ever more fitted than at present for
originating life?

The attempt to explain life by Protoplasm is generally
acknowledged to have failed. The reader will find
materials for forming a judgment on the controversy in
Prof. Huxley's ' Physical Basis of Life,' in Dr Lionel
Beale's ' Protoplasm/ and Dr Hutchison Stirling's ' Con-
cerning Protoplasm.' The Rev. Joseph Cook, in several
of his second series of Boston Monday Lectures, presents
Dr Lionel Beale's results in a very popular and effective
manner. I regret to perceive, however, that he and
others should accept so readily Dr Lionel's view that
the body is divisible into dead and living matter, the
latter being a comparatively small portion, which be-
comes red under the application of carmine, I confess
I fail to see that his division will hold, and believe that
every kind of matter — Beale's so-called living matter
included — will ultimately be analysed into inorganic
elements.

The world-renowned Bathybius of Huxley, Haeckei,
and Strauss, has turned out to be "a sea-mare's nest."
The explorations of the Challenger have shown that the
supposed "vast sheet of living matter enveloping the
whole earth beneath its seas" is little more than a
deposit of gypsum., Huxley, with characteristic candour,
hastened, as soon as the results of these explorations
were communicated to him, to acknowledge his mistake.
Even Haeckei no longer argues that the existence of
Bathybius is proved, but ventures only to maintain that
its non-existence is not proved.

Were this note not already too long, I should have
submitted Haeckel's views concerning the origin of life
to a special examination. It may be necessary to state,

496 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

in order to prevent misconceptions as to my own posi-
tion, that I do not regard the explanation of life by
mechanical and chemical causes as absurd or impossible,
or as involving any difficulties nearly so great as those
which consciousness or mind presents to materialism.

Note XVIIL, page 173.
Materialism and Mind.

My chief reason for passing so briefly over the materi-
alistic attempts to account for mental phenomena is the
manifest inadequacy of these attempts. Wlien material-
ism comes to deal with mind it simply breaks down. It
has not as yet been able to bring forward any fact which
proves more than that the mind is intimately connected
with, and largely dependent on, the body — a conclusion
which affords no support to materialism.

It may be of use to note some of the more prominent
respects in which materialism fails when it undertakes to
account for mind.

I. It leaves unexplained the fact that physical and
mental phenomena are distinguished by differences far
greater than any of those which distinguish other phe-
nomena. Materialists represent the contrasts between
matter and mind as similar to the distinctions between
different states of matter. This only shows that they do
not realise what the facts of the case are. The unlike-
ness between any physical and any mental phenomenon
is incomparably greater than the unlikeness between any
two physical phenomena. It is an entirely peculiar un-

Appendix : Note X VIII. 497

likeness. What is called matter may pass through many
stages, may assume many phases, and may perform many
functions ; but in all its transformations, even the most
surprising, it never ceases to be an object of sense, a
something external, extended, bounded, divisible, mov-
able, &c. ; while no phenomenon of mind — no thought,
volition, or feeling — ever has any of these properties, but
has a number of other properties never found m matter.
The perception of this truth early led men to believe that
the phenomena called mental could not be resolved mto,
or accounted for by, those called material ; and the most
recent materialism has not succeeded in showing that
any other belief can be reasonably entertained.

Prof. Bain, in his volume on ' Mind and Body,' while
explicitly admitting that mental and bodily states are
"utterly contrasted" and '^cannot be compared," main-
tains that the physical and the mental are " the two
sides of a double-faced unity." But he has not shown
that utterly contrasted qualities can coinhere in a single
substance, nor that what is un extended can either be
a side of anything or have a side of its own. Further,
as Prof. Tyndall remarks ' in his Birmingham lecture,
— "It is no explanation to say that the objective and
subjective effects are two sides of one and the same
phenomenon. Why should the phenomenon have two
sides? This is the very core of the difficulty. There
are plenty of molecular motions which do not exhibit
this two-sidedness. Does water think or feel when it
forms into frost-ferns upon a window-pane? If not,
why should the molecular motion of the brain be yoked
to this mysterious companion — consciousness ? "

II. Materialism fails to show that molecular changes
in the nerves or brain ever pass into mental states. This
2 I

498 Anti-TJieistic Theories,

is the argument employed by Tyndall in the quotation
given in the lecture. Striking statements to the same
effect will be found in Du Bois-Reymond's ' Ueber die
Grenzen des Naturerkennens,' pp. 20, 21, and in Dr
Ferrier's 'Functions of the Brain/ pp. 255, 256. Says the
former : " I will now prove conclusively, as I believe, that
not only is consciousness unexplained by material con-
ditions in the present state of our science (which all will
admit), but that, in the very nature of things, it never
can be explained by these conditions. The most ex-
alted mental activity is no more incomprehensible in its
material conditions than is the first grade of conscious-
ness— namely, sensation. With the first awakening of
pleasure and pain experienced upon earth by some
creature of the simplest structure appeared an impass-
able gulf, and the world became doubly incomprehen-
sible." Says the latter: "We may succeed in determining
the exact nature of the molecular changes which occur
in the brain when a sensation is experienced, but this
will not bring us one whit nearer the explanation of the
nature of that which constitutes the sensation. The one
is objective and the other subjective, and neither can be
expressed in terms of the other."

III. Materialism fails to explain the unity of conscious-
ness. This is an old because an obvious argument, but
the ablest thinkers in Europe still regard it as valid and
invincible. It has been presented with masterly skill by
Lotze both in his 'Medical Psychology' and in his 'Mikro-
kosmos.' A careful statement of it, with reference to
recent theories, will also be found in an article by Prof.
Bowen in the 'Princeton Review' for March 1878 —
" Dualism, Materialism, or Idealism ? "

IV. The consciousness of personal identity is also a

Appendix : Note X VII I. 499

fact with which materialism has not yet succeeded in
showing that it can be reconciled. There is no doubt
as to the flict. Thought, memory, and the sense of re-
sponsibility, amply attest it. Have materialists shown
how it can be harmonised with the hypothesis that man
is merely body, and the certainty that all the elements
and atoms of the body are in perpetual change and cir-
culation? The answer must be in the negative. This
seems to me to be very convincingly proved in ]\I.
Janet's ' Materialism of the Present Day,' ch. vii.

V. Another mental fact with which materialism has not
yet shown itself to be reconcilable is self-consciousness.
In self-consciousness the mind distinguishes itself from all
material objects, including all the organs of its own body.
It appears to itself to know and feel itself to be distinct
from the external world, distinct from its body, distinct
from its brain. It may, of course, be mistaken : this
apparent opposition of body and soul which is essen-
tially inherent in self-consciousness may be an illusion
altogether, or there may be some way of transcending it
which will allow us to assign to it a certain value, and
yet to identify soul and body ; but materialism has cer-
tainly hitherto failed to show it to be mistaken, and has
never even dealt seriously with the problem which the
fact referred to presents. The problem is not one likely
to be solved by merely calling body "object-conscious-
ness," and the soul a "side," or by any similar verbal
perversities.

VI. Materialism does not account for the internal
spontaneity or the self- activity which is characteristic
of mind. It has not yet proved either that we are
moved wholly from without, or that we are mere auto-
mata. It claims to have done so, but the claim has for-

500 Aiiti-Theistic Theo7'ies.

tunately not been made good. On this point see Meyer's
' Philosophische Zeitfragen/ k. viii. ; the paper of Prof.
Huxley in the 'Fortnightly Review 'for Nov. 1874, on
the question — "Are animals automata?" the articles
of Dr Carpenter, Prof. Mivart, and the Duke of Argyll
in the 'Contemporary Review' during 1875, suggested
by it ; and Dr Elam's ' Automatism and Evolution.'

VII. Materialism is irreconcilable with the moral feel-
ings of human nature.

Note XIX., page 174.

Materialism and Morality.

M. Tissot has endeavoured to show, in his ' Principes
du droit public' (hv. ii. ch. i.), that materialism does not
necessarily preclude belief in God, free-will, moral law,
and a future life. His argument is skilfully presented,
but it is not conclusive ; indeed, it will be found when
strictly examined to amount merely to the plea that
since materialism is essentially inconsistent, we have no
right to demand that it shall be consistent, or to censure
its special inconsistencies. He contends that because
materialism ascribes force to matter, it may with equal
reason ascribe to it life ; that if it may hold matter to be
capable of life, it may likewise hold it to be capable of
thought ; that when it acknowledges matter may think,
nothing forbids it also to admit, on the testimony of
consciousness, that matter may be, in certain circum-
stances, possessed of free-will ; and that to whatever it
assigns free-will it may assign true morality. Now what

Appendix: Note XIX. 501

such argumentation really proves is, not that material-
ism is innocuous, but that it is absurd — not that it is
compatible with morality, but that it is incompatible
with reason. It shows that materialism starts from the
first with the assumption that matter is not matter, but
something more than matter, and that at every onward
step it has renewed recourse to this assumption ; in
other words, it shows that materialism is consistently
unreaso?iable.

The views of morality actually taught by many con-
temporary materialists are extremely debasing. It
would be easy and perhaps useful to prove this by
quotations, but it would also be painful, and I refrain.
Mivart ('Lessons from Nature,' ch. xiii.), J. B. Meyer
('Phil. Zeitfragen,' kap. ix.), and various other writers,
have touched on the subject. It is lamentable to ob-
serve how widely heathenish and even brutish senti-
ments as to individual and social morality are springing
forth, especially in Germany, from the materialism which
is at present prevalent.

The argument from conscience against materialism
is thus stated by an able American author, Prof. G, P.
Fisher : " No man of sane mind can deny that the
phenomena of the moral nature are as real as any which
the senses or instruments of a physicist can observe.
They are facts which science, in the large sense of the
term, must take notice of or abdicate its functions. To
ignore the vast and various phenomena which connect
themselves with the sense of moral responsibleness is
impossible. What account shall be given of moral
praise and blame — of self- approval and censure? Here
these feelings are, and here they always have been. Do
they testify to the truth ? If they do not, then away with

502 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

the language which only serves to deceive ; away with
all the multiform expressions of moral approbation or
condemnation ; away with courts of law and the other
infinitely various manifestations of the sense of justice
and moral accountableness on which the entire fabric
of social life reposes ! The evolutionist must allow
that these verdicts of the moral faculty, be their genesis
what it may, are as valid as are any judgments of the
intellect. The moral discernment rests on as solid a
foundation as the intellectual perceptions. Now apply
the doctrine that the determinations of the will — the
faithfulness of St John and the treachery of Judas
alike — are the necessary effect of atomic movements
of matter. They simply indicate a certain molecular
action of the matter in a corner of the brain. Their
moral approval or condemnation, the joy of one who
has triumphed over a temptation, the remorse of one
who has betrayed the innocent, are the veriest folly.
A man who maliciously shoots his neighbour has no
more occasion to blame himself for the deed than has
a horse who destroys a man's life by a kick. Men call
such an animal, in figurative speech, a vicious animal;
and if materialism is true, there is no other kind of vice
possible to a human being. Tyndall, in one of his late
productions, argues that this doctrine of molecular ethics
is perfectly consistent with the application of motives for
the purpose of inducing men to act in one way rather
than another. These motives, it is implied, are forces
thrown into the scale that the beam may rise on the
opposite side. This is the statement which fatalists of
every time are for ever making. But the point insisted
upon is not the freedom of the will as found by direct
consciousness, although this evidence of man's moral

Appendix: Note XIX, 503

freedom is incontrovertible ; but the phenomena of
moral approval and disapproval, of guilt, self-accusation,
and remorse, are the facts demanding some explanation
which shall not destroy their reality in the very act
of attempting to explain them. Here it is that the
materialistic psychology breaks down. Nor can it be
said that this is opposing a doctrine by merely pointing
out its mischievous consequences. The affirmations of
conscience referred to as putting to rout the advocates
of materialism are as truly perceptions and judgments
as are any of the propositions that result from the
exercise of the senses or the understanding. If mate-
rialistic evolution, as predicated of moral action, be
true, the rational nature is at war with itself. There is
an insoluble contradiction in human intelligence itself,
which no sophistical juggle of words can avail to cover
up, much less to remove." — 'Princeton Review,' January
1878, pp. 210, 211.

Principal Tulloch, in the first of his ' Croall Lectures,'
makes some interesting remarks to the same effect.
What he says of ''sin," for example, in the following
passage may be applied to all the phenomena of our
moral consciousness. " It " — the doctrine of materialistic
evolution — "leaves no room for the idea of sin. For
that which is solely a growth of nature cannot contain
anything that is at variance with its own higher laws.
If the individual and social man alike are merely the
outcome of natural forces working endlessly forward
toward higher and more complex forms, then, whatever
man is, he is not and cannot be a sinner. The mixed
product of internal and external forces — of what is called
organism and environment — he may, at certain stages
of his progress, be very defective. But he has not fallen

504 Anti-Theistic Theo7'ies.

below any ideal he might have reached. He is only at
any point what the sum of natural factors which enter
into his being have made him. The two conceptions of
sin and of development, in this naturalistic sense, can-
not coexist. I cannot be the outcome of natural law
and yet accountable for the fact that I am no better
than I am."

Carneri, Jaeger, and others have attempted to apply
Darwinism to morals. Miss Cobbe, Ebrard, R. Schmid,
Triimpelmann, Wigand, and others, have criticised it in
this relation.

Note XX., page 183.
Positivism and its Schools.

The chief works regarding positivism published before

1874 are mentioned on p. 259 of my 'Philosophy of
History in France and Germany.' The following publi-
cations may be specified as among the most important
which have appeared on the subject since that date :
Many excellent papers by M. Pillon, and some by M.
Renouvier, in the ' Critique Philosophique ' for the years *

1875 and 1878; 'La Philosophic Positive,' a review,
edited by MM. Littre and Wyrouboff ; ' La Revue Occi-
dentale,' edited by M. Pierre Lafitte; the articles of
Mr Harrison on "The Religious and Conservative
Aspects of Positivism," in the ' Contemporary Review,'
vols. XX vi. and xxvii. ; E. Littre', ' Fragments de Philoso-
phic Positive' (1876); and M. Ferraz, 'Etude sur la
Philosophic en France,' ch. vi. (1877).

Appendix: Note XX. 505

Positivists who acknowledge any allegiance to Comte
may be thus grouped in relation to him. First, those
who accept his system as a whole — the philosophy, the
polity, and the religion. Their head, the present Comt-
ist pontiff, is M. Lafitte ; and among their representa-
tives in France are M. Audiffrent, Dr Robinet, and M.
Semerie ; and in England Dr Bridges, Mr Congreve, and
Mr Harrison. Their literary organ is the * Revue Occi-
dentale.' Second, those who accept the entire general
philosophy of Comte, but reject his polity and religion.
Their acknowledged chief is M. Littre' \ and M. Naquet,
Dr Robin, and M. Wyrouboff are among their best
known representatives. Their organ, 'La Philosophic
Positive,' was founded in 1867. Third, those who do
not accept even the philosophy of Comte as a whole,
but who profess to receive the spirit, method, and prin-
ciples of his teaching as to the doctrine of science. They
are often called English positivists, although, of course,
writers like M. Taine must be inchided among them.
They, are simply phenomenalists and experimentalists.
They have no common system of doctrine, and their
Comtism is so variable as to be indefinable.

Positivism is a hopelessly ambiguous term, and has
been claimed by and applied to diverse and dissimilar
theories. Some consider themselves positivists because
they are positive that matter is the only reality ; others
because they are positive that sensation is the source and
measure of all knowledge ; others because they are posi-
tive that there is no God, no soul, and no future life ;
others because they are positive that there is nothing
positively certain ; and others for other reasons.

5o6 Anti'Theistic Theories.

Note XXI., page 193.
PosiTiviST Law of Three States.

Mr J. Morley and Dr Paulsen have expressed their
dissent from my views as to Comte's so-called " law of
three states," but neither of them has ventured to face
the facts which I adduced as irreconcilable with it. My
account of its history has been abundantly confirmed by
M. Pillon in Nos. 6, 8, 10, 11, 23, 24, and 25, of the
' Critique Philosophique 'for 1875. These articles gave
much offence to M. Audififrent, Robinet, Semerie, and
the orthodox positivists generally, but they are most
accurate and conclusive.

Dr Paulsen's reason (see his able review of my ' Philo-
sophy of History ' in the ' Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsycho-
logie,' Bd. 8, Hft. 4) for maintaining the consistency of
Comte's alleged law with theism, is that theism is a form
of belief, but not a kind of knowledge. There is here
involved a twofold oversight : for, first, Comte's law is
not a law of states of knowledge, but of states of be-
lief; and, second, the assertion that theism is belief but
not knowledge is unproved, and stands in great need
of proof.

Appendix: Note XX IL 507

Note XXIL, page 209.
The Positivist Religion.

There is an excellent account of the Comtist religion,
and much interesting information as to its history, in the
article " Positivism " in the ' North British Review,' Sept.
1S68.

As to the French orthodox positivists, M. Ribot re-
marks,— "Many of them are animated with a truly
religious faith, and I have heard them speak with an
enthusiasm worthy of the brightest epoch of the middle
age." They can hardly surpass in zeal and unction
some of their English brethren. The ' Sermons ' of Mr
Congreve, and the articles of Mr Harrison on the reli-
gious aspects of positivism, show pulpit qualifications of
a very high order, and especially a fervour which reminds
one sometimes of Jeremy Taylor, and sometimes of
Samuel Rutherford.

Dr M 'Cosh's ' Positivism and Christianity ' is less
rhetorical but more reasonable. Mr C. Staniland Wake,
in ' The Evolution of Morality,' vol. ii. ch. viii., takes,
perhaps, somewhat too favourable a view of the " Reli-
gion of Humanity." He recognises, however, the defects
in Comte's conception of the Grand -Etre, and justly
insists that the merits which it possesses are ethical
rather than religious.

5o8 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

Note XXIII., page 233.

History of Secularism.

Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, Thomas Paine, Robert
Taylor, Richard Carlile, and Robert Owen, may be de-
scribed as those who directly prepared the way for the
secularist movement. Bentham and Mill did so by the
manner in which they inculcated utilitarianism and polit-
ical reform, not by the explicit avowal of their atheistical
opinions. As to their attitude towards religion, see Pro-
fessor Bain's remarks in ' Mind/ vol. ii. p. 527, and J. S.
Mill's Autobiography, pp. 38-44, 69, 70. The attacks of
Paine, Taylor, and Carlile on Christianity were animated
by a spirit which could not stop short of bitter antagonism
to all religion. There is a memoir of Paine by Cheetham
(1809), and another by Rickman (18 15); an account of
Taylor in Iconoclast, and Watts' ' Half-Hours with the
Freethinkers ; ' and a notice of Carlile, by Holyoake
(1853). Paine and Taylor professed to be deists; the
latest creed of Carlile was a kind of naturalism presented
in a strange semi-scriptural phraseology. Paine's views
must be sought for in his Theological Works ; Taylor's
in the ' Devil's Pulpit ' and ' Diegesis ; ' and Carlile's in the
volumes of the ' Republican,' ' Lion,' ' Christian Warrior,'
&c. The influence of the benevolent utopianist, Robert
Owen, was decidedly secularist and anti-religious. He
identified God with nature, or at least with " the mys-
terious power in nature which permeates every particle
of the elements which compose the universe." A list of
his principal works will be found in Mr Holyoake's
notice of his 'Life and Last Days' (1859).

Appendix: Note XXI 11. 509

Perhaps the earliest periodical organ of popular atheism
in this country was the ' Oracle of Reason,' the first
number of which appeared in November 6, 1841, and
the last on December 2, 1843. ^^ the course of its brief
existence it had four editors — Charles Southwell, George
Jacob Holyoake, Thomas Paterson, and William Chilton,
the first three being in rapid succession imprisoned for
blasphemy. Mr Southwell, when his term of imprison-
ment was expired, started, in 1842, the ^Investigator;'
and in 1843 'The Movement' succeeded the ' Oracle of
Reason.' These periodicals advocated opinions of the
same kind as those which are at present maintained in
more temperate and becoming language by the ' National
Reformer,' 'Secular Review,' and ' Liberal.' Their chief
contributors may be said to have been the representa-
tives of the first generation of secularists. Mr Holyoake
is probably the only one of them of any note still alive.
In ' Half-Hours with Freethinkers ' there is an account of
Mr Charles Southwell ; also of Mrs Emma Martin, who
likewise belonged to the earliest secularist group.

In 1 85 1 Mr Holyoake first made use of the term
" Secularist," as more appropriate and distinctive than
"Atheist;" and in 1852 he commenced organising the
English freethinkers according to the principles of secu-
larism. For a short time he had an ally in Mr Thomas
Cooper, but in 1856 this honest and courageous man
became convinced of the truth of Christianity. Mr
Holyoake edited for many years a periodical called the
' Reasoner.' His most interesting work is, ' The Trial oi
Theism' (1858). I willingly acknowledge that it con-
tains much which is suggestive, and much even which is
true and important, although I naturally deem its criti-
cism of theism very inconclusive. Of Mr Holyoake's

510 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

discussions the best known, perhaps, are the Cooper
Street and the Glasgow discussions with the Rev.
Brewin Grant, the discussion with the Rev. Mr
Townley, and the discussion with Mr Bradlaugh. The
biographical and critical essay of Sophia Dobson Collet,
entitled "George Jacob Holyoake and Modern Atheism "
(1855), is well worthy of perusal. Mr Austin Holyoake
has aided his brother in attacking Christianity and
theism, and is the author of "Thoughts on Atheism,"
" Does there Exist a Moral Governor of the Universe ? "
and several other pamphlets.

Among the most active and prominent younger secu-
larists the following may be mentioned : i. Charles
Bradlaugh, President of the National Secular Society,
editor of the ' National Reformer,' author of ' The Free-
thinkers' Text-book,' pt. i. ; ' A Plea for Atheism ; ' and
many political and anti-religious pamphlets. Mr Brad-
laugh has displayed great controversial activity. Ot
his numerous discussions, I may mention these : (a)
The Credibility and Morality of the Four Gospels. The
authorised and verbatim Report of the Five Nights' Dis-
cussion, at Halifax, between the Rev. T. D. Matthias,
Baptist Minister, and Iconoclast: London, i860, (b)
A Discussion on the question, Has Man a Soul ? between
the Rev. T. Lawson of Bacup, and Iconoclast of Lon-
don: Manchester, 1 86 1. (<;) Christianity and Secularism ;
Report of a Public Discussion between Mr W. Hutchings
and Mr C. Bradlaugh, held in the Public Hall, Wigan,
on February 4 and 5, 186 1, on the question, Whether
is Christianity or Secularism best calculated to promote
human happiness? Wigan, 1861. (d) A Full Report of
the Discussion between Mr Mackie (editor of the * War-
rington Guardian') and Iconoclast (Mr Bradlaugh) in

Appendix: Note XX III. 511

the Music Hall, Warrington, April 10 and 11, 1861, on
the question, What does the Bible teach about God ? Lon-
don : Ward & Co. {e) The Existence of God : A Dis-
cussion between Rev. Woodville Woodman, Minister of
the New Jerusalem Church, Kersley, Lancashire, and
Iconoclast, editor of the 'National Reformer,' held at
Wigan, on February 18 to 21, 1861. London: J. S. Hod-
son. (/) Is the Bible a Divine Revelation ? A Discussion
between Rev. W. Woodman and Iconoclast, held at
Ashton-under-Lyne,onOctober 2ist, 2 2d, 28th, and 29th:
London, 1861. i^g) Modern Atheism and the Bible:
Report of the Discussion between the Rev. W. Barker,
Minister of Church Street Chapel, Blackfriars, and
Iconoclast, editor of the ' National Reformer,' held at
Cowper Street Schoolroom, September 1862 : London.
(//) Two Nights' Public Discussion between Thomas
Cooper and Charles Bradlaugh, on the Being of a God
as the Maker and Moral Governor of the Universe, at
the Hall of Science, London, February i and 2, 1864.
(/) What does Christian Theism Teach ? verbatim Re-
port of the Two Nights' Discussion between the Rev.
A. J. Harrison and C. Bradlaugh: London, 1872. (y)
South Place Debate between Rev. B. Grant and C.
Bradlaugh: London, 1875. For a Church of England
clergyman's view of Mr Bradlaugh and the Secular
Movement, see ' Heterodox London,' by Dr Maurice
Davies.

2. Charles Watts, editor of the * Secular Review,'
author of " Christian Evidences Criticised," " Why am I
an Atheist?" " Secularism in its Various Relations," and
other pamphlets. Of the discussions in which he has
taken part, those of which I have seen reports are :
{a) Debate on the Christian Evidences between Mr C.

512 A nti- TJieistic TJieories.

Watts and B. H. Cooper, Esq., at Stratford, February
1 6 and 23, 187 1 : London, {b) Full Eeport of the
Public Discussion on the question, Is the Belief in an
Infinite Personal Being Reasonable and Beneficial?
between the Rev. Wm. Adamson, Evangelical Union
Minister, Edinburgh, and Mr C. Watts, Accredited
Agent of the National Secular Society, London, in the
New Waverley Hall, Edinburgh, on 4th and 5th of
March 1872 : Glasgow and London, {c) Four Nights'
Public Discussion between the Rev. A. Stewart (of
Aberdeen) and Mr C. Watts, on, — Is the Belief in the
Being of an Infinite Personal God Reasonable? and
Are the Four Gospels Authentic and worthy of Credit?
London, 1873.

3. George William Foote, editor of the ' Liberal,' and
author of ' Secularism Restated,' &c. He seeks to follow
a via media between the paths of Mr Holyoake and Mr
Bradlaugh.

4. Annie Besant, who has written Part 11. of the
' Freethinkers' Text - book,' ' My Path to Atheism,'

* History of the Great French Revolution,' ' The Gospel
of Atheism,' and various pamphlets. These works dis-
play talents which might have done much service in a
good cause.

In some of the discussions to which I have referred
the anti-secularist position is well defended — as, for ex-
ample, by the Rev. Mr Adamson, Mr Hutchings, the
Rev. T. Lawson, and the Rev. Mr Woodman. The

* Fallacies of Secularism,' by Dr Sexton, is judicious and
able. I am not aware that there is any good account of
the history of secularism.

Appendix: Note XXIV. 513

Note XXIV., page 249.
The Atheism of Secularism.

I have not dealt specially with the arguments em-
ployed by secularists in favour of atheism, because there
is nothing special in these arguments.

Mr Holyoake's attempt to overthrow the design argu-
ment by extending it, is the most original and distinctive
portion of his reasoning against theism. It will be found
in his ' Paley Refuted,' ' Trial of Theism,' ' Discussion
with Townley,' &c. Conceding for his purj^ose that the
design argument proves the personality of a Designer, he
contends that all analogy and experience prove that
twQYj person is organised — that wherever there is intel-
ligence there must be a brain, senses, and nerves — and
concludes that the organisation of Deity must teem with
marks of design, not less than other organisations, and
consequently that Deity can only be thought of as a
being who has had a maker. If the view I have given
of the design argument be correct, such reasoning as this
is obviously irrelevant. The design argument is from
order to inteUigence, and to intelligence only. Its infer-
ence is in no degree or respect to organisation — to brain,
senses, and nerves.

Miss Collet, in the essay mentioned in the previous
note, has some interesting remarks on Mr Holyoake's
argument ; and Dr J. Buchanan, in * Faith in God and
IModern Atheism,' vol. ii. pp. 242-261, refutes it in a
most elaborate manner.

This singular argument, which Mr Holyoake many
years ago rendered familiar to English working men, has
2 K

514 Anti-Theistic Theories.

recently been reproduced by the late Prof. Clifford and
the distinguished German physiologist Du Bois-Rey-
mond, and addressed by them to scientifically educated
persons. I quote the words of Du Bois-Reymond in
order to have the pleasure of quoting also a part of the
admirable reply given to them by Dr Martin eau. Du
Bois-Reymond's words are: "What can you say then
to the student of nature if, before he allows a psychical
principle to the universe, he asks to be shown, some-
where within it, embedded in neurine and fed with warm
arterial blood under proper pressure, a convolution of
ganglionic globules and nerve-tubes proportioned in size
to the faculties of such a mind." Dr Martineau's words
are : '"What can we say ? ' I say, first of all, that this
demand for a Divine brain and nerves and arteries comes
strangely from those who reproach the theist with ' an-
thropomorphism.' In order to believe in God, they
must be assured that the plates in ' Quain's Anatomy '
truly represent Him. If it be a disgrace to religion to
take the human as measure of the Divine, what place in
the scale of honour can we assign to this stipulation?
Next, I ask my questioner whether he suspends belief in
his friend's mental powers till he has made sure of the
contents of their crania? and whether, in the case of
ages beyond reach, there are no other adequate vestiges
of intellectual and moral life in which he places a ready
trust ? Immediate knowledge of mind other than his own
he can never have : its existence in other cases is gath-
ered from the signs of its activity, whether in personal
lineaments or in products stamped with thought : and
to stop this process of inference with the discovery of
huma7i beings is altogether arbitrary, till it is shown that
the grounds for extending it are inadequate. Further, I

Appejidix: Note XXIV. 515

would submit that, in dealing with the problem of the
Universal Mind, this demand for organic centralisation
is strangely inappropriate. It is when mental power has
to be localised, bounded, lent out to individual natures,
and assigned to a scene of definite relations, that a focus
must be found for it, and a molecular structure with de-
terminate periphery be built for its lodgment. And were
Du Bois-Reymond himself ever to alight on the por-
tentous cerebrum which he imagines, I greatly doubt
whether he would fulfil his promise and turn theist at
the sight : that he had found the Cause of causes would
be the last inference it would occur to him to draw:
rather would he look round for some monstrous creature,
some kosmic megatherium, born to float and pasture on
the fields of space. . . . Quite in the sense of Du
Bois-Reymond's objection was the saying of Laplace,
that in scanning the whole heaven with the telescope
he found no God ; which again has its parallel in Law-
rence's remark that the scalpel, in opening the brain,
came upon no soul. Both are unquestionably true,
and it is precisely the truth of the second which viti-
ates the intended inference from the first. Had the
scalpel alighted on some perceptible i/^^x^y, we might
have required of the telescope to do the same ; and, on
its bringing in a dumb report, have concluded that there
was only mechanism there. But, in spite of the knife's
failure, we positively know that conscious thought and
will were present, yet no more visible, yesterday: and
so, that the telescope misses all but the bodies of the
universe and their light, avails nothing to prove the
absence of a Living Mind through all. If you take the
wrong instruments, such quaesita may well evade you.
The test-tube will not detect an insincerity, or the micro-

5i6 Anti-Theistic Theories.

scope analyse a grief. The organism of nature, like that
of the brain, lies open, in its external features, to the
scrutiny of science ; but, on the inner side, the life of
both is reserved for other modes of apprehension, of
which the base is self- consciousness and the crown is
rehgion." — ' Modern MateriaHsm,' pp. 66-69.

The most distinctive and peculiar feature, perhaps, in
the atheism of Mr Bradlaugh, is the extent to which it is
rested on the notion of substance enunciated by Spinoza
in the definition — "Substance is that which exists in
itself, and is conceived per se ; in other words, the con-
ception of which does not require the conception of
anything else antecedent to it." It is strange that Mr
Bradlaugh should not have seen that this notion, this
definition, implies that we can have a priori and absolute
knowledge, and is utterly incompatible with the doc-
trine that all our knowledge is relative and based on the
senses. If he can conceive substance per se, and not
merely through its qualities, effects, and relationships to
his own faculties, he is logically bound to abandon sen-
sationalism and all its consequences, and betake himself
to absolute idealism or to mysticism. Indeed, following
in the footsteps of Spinoza, he actually treads for a short
distance the high a priori road, without apparently being
aware that he is on it, and gets as far as the conclusion
that there is only one substance. It is to be regretted
that he should not have more carefully inquired whether
there is even one. I have never seen it proved that there
i5 even one substance in Spinoza's sense of the term.
Defining substance in the way indicated, the creation or
origination of substance is, of course, absolutely incon-
ceivable to Mr Bradlaugh. If we mean by substance
only what is self-existent, the creation of substance is a

Appendix: Note XXIV. 517

manifestly self-contradictory expression, equivalent to the
origination of the imoriginated.

"Substance" is not the only metaphysical spectre
which haunts the mind and disturbs the reasonings of
Mr Bradlaugh. " Infinity " is nearly as bad. In fact, for
a person possessed of a typically English intellect, Mr
Bradlaugh shows, in dealing with theism, a curious pre-
dilection for metaphysical conundrums. As a good ex-
ample of this, I may adduce the reasoning by which he
endeavours, in a criticism of my volume on * Theism '
(see 'National Reformer,' Dec. 23, 1877), to show that
the universe cannot have been originated by God.
"This new universe," he says, "was either better than
God, or it was worse than God, or it was identical with
God. But it could not have been better than the infin-
itely perfect. Nor can the infinitely good be conceived
as capable of resulting in that which was a deterioration.
Nor can the theory of absolute sameness be maintained,
as this would render it impossible to distinguish between
the creator and the created." From this argument, it
would appear that Mr Bradlaugh's idea of an infinitely
perfect Being is that of a Being unable to produce any
finite effect. According to his view, infinite perfection
is equivalent to utter weakness. This rivals Hegel's
' Being and Not-Being are the Same.' Mr Bradlaugh
thus proceeds : " This new universe must have been
something added to that which existed prior to its origi-
nation, or it was nothing added. But the instant you
conceive something added to God, you fatally impugn
His infinity, or you succeed in affirming infinity and the
new universe added to it — which is nonsense." Let Mr
Bradlaugh try another application of this reasoning, and
he will hardly fail to see that it is a mere metaphysical

5i8 Anti-Theistic Theories.

cobweb. He himself exists, and, being of a certain size,
fills a certain amount of space. Yet before he existed,
space was infinite, and whether he existed or not space
would be infinite. Does his existence, then, fatally im-
pugn the infinity of space? And unless it be nonsense
to affirm infinity and Mr Bradlaugh added to it, why
should it be nonsense to affirm infinity and the universe
added to it? Mr Bradlaugh continues: "You affirm
that the universe owes its existence to the reason and
will of God — that is, that the universe did not always
exist, but that God reasoned about it and decided that
it should exist. Now, as the universe did not always
exist, prior to its origination its non-existence must have
been reasonable or unreasonable to God. But it cannot
be supposed that the infinitely wise and powerful would
have endured the unreasonable ; therefore, while the
universe did not yet exist, its non-existence must have
been reasonable. But if it ever were unreasonable that
the universe should exist, and if God was then the sole
infinite existence, and infinitely wise, it would have al-
ways been unreasonable that the universe should origi-
nate, and there would never have been any creation."
It is hardly necessary to point out that Mr Bradlaugh
here confounds reason with reasoning. No intelligent
man thinks or speaks of God as reasoning. But stranger
even than this oversight is the conception of infinite
wisdom implied in Mr Bradlaugh's argument. Infinite
wisdom is assumed to be incompatible with the origina-
tion of anything finite at a definite time. If so, infinite
wisdom must be much inferior to human wisdom in its
humblest form.

There is an impression in some quarters that atheism
is advocated in a weak and unskilful manner bv the chiefs

Appendix: Note XXV. 519

of secularism It is an impression in which I do not
share. Most of the writers who are striving to diffuse
atheism in literary circles are not to be compared in
intellectual strength with either Mr Holyoake or Mr
Bradlaugh. The working men of England may be as-
sured that they have heard from the secularists nearly
everything in behalf of atheism which is at all plausible.

Note XXV., page 253.
Darwinism and the Universality of Religion.

Darwinians are obviously not logically bound to deny
that religion is a universal characteristic of the human
race. They may even quite consistently maintain that
traces of it will be found not only among all tribes of
men, but among various species of animals. And this
is what several of them actually hold.

Mr Darwin himself merely ventures to suggest that
the dog is susceptible of "a distant approach" to re-
ligious emotion. He says : " The feeling of religious
devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love,
complete submission to an exalted and mysterious
superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence,
gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other ele-
ments. No being could experience so complex an
emotion until advanced in his intellectual and moral
faculties to at least a moderately high level. Never-
theless we see some distant approach to this state of
mind in the deep love of a dog for his master, as-
sociated with complete submission, some fear, and

520 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

perhaps other feelings." Not a few evolutionists go
much farther, and, indeed, represent as evidences of
religion all the tokens of confidence and gratitude to-
wards man displayed by the lower animals. IM. Houzeau
( ' Etudes sur les Faculte's Mentales des Animaux,' pp.
271-273) thinks that there are many persons and even
peoples not so religious as the dog.

As to this view, it may suffice to say that trust and
gratitude are not in themselves religious emotions.
They only become so when their objects are, or are
supposed to be, supernatural beings. A man's confi-
dence in and affection to a fellow-man are not religious
emotions. Why, then, should a beast's confidence in
or affection towards a man be so designated? A man
is not to a dog an invisible being, an agent inaccessible
to its senses. It may be replied that the object of
man's worship may be a visible being, and that, in fact,
numerous peoples adore stones, plants, and animals.
If the religion of a man may display itself in the
worship of a beast, why should not a beast show itself
to be religious in the worship of a man ? The answer
is that a man never worships a beast merely as a beast ;
while we have no reason to suppose that a beast in
trusting or loving a man regards him as anything else
than a man. When a man worships a beast, he worships
it not as what it really is, but as the type or symbol, the
mask or embodiment, of a Divine Being. It is some
unseen agent — some mysterious power — manifested in,
or at least somehow associated with, the beast, that he
really adores. Low, therefore, as his worship is, there
is a spiritual sense — a consciousness of the Invisible and
Divine — at the root of it. Can it be shown that there
is anything of the kind in a dog when it fawns upon a

Appendix: Note XXV I. 521

man, or in a horse when, by neighing, it solicits human
assistance ? Unless this is shown, the act of a human
being adoring even a beast must be held to be utterly
unlike any act of a beast towards a man.

Note XXVI., page 263.

Alleged Atheism of South American Tribes.

The words of Spix and Martius are as follows :
"Chained to the present, he (the Brazilian Indian)
hardly ever raises his eyes to the starry firmament. Yet
he is actuated by a certain awe of some constellations,
as of everything that indicates a spiritual connection of
things. His chief attention, however, is not directed to
the sun, but to the moon, according to which he calcu-
lates time, and from which he is used to deduce good
and evil. As all that is good passes without notice by
him, and only what is disagreeable makes an impression
on him, he acknowledges no cause of good, or no God,
but only an evil principle which meets him sometimes in
the form of a lizard, of a man with stag's feet, of a croc-
odile, or an ounce ; sometimes transforms itself into a
swamp, &c. ; leads him astray, vexes him, brings him
into difficulty and danger, and even kills him. They
ascribe a direct intercourse with the demons to their
paje, who is acquainted with many powerful herbs,
appears to be at the same time their priest and phy-
sician, and contrives to maintain his credit among them
by all kinds of conjuring tricks. In extraordinary cases
he is applied to for his advice, which he gives, after con-

522 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

suiting the demons, for which purpose he generally uses
a dark tempestuous night. Certain animals, for instance,
a kind of goatsucker, and the screaming kinds of vulture,
caracarai, and caoha, are messengers from the dead to
the paje, and therefore highly respected by everybody."
— ' Travels in Brazil,^ b. iv. ch. ii.

What Mr Wallace says is : "I cannot make out that
they have any belief that can be called a religion. They
appear to have no definite idea of a God ; if asked who
they think made the rivers, and the forests, and the sky,
they will reply that they do not know, or sometimes that
they suppose that it was ' Tupanan,' a word that appears
to answer to God, but of which they understand nothing.
They have much more definite ideas of a bad spirit,
'Jurapari,' or Devil, whom they fear, and endeavour
through their paje's to propitiate. When it thunders
they say the ' Jurapari ' is angry, and their idea of nat-
ural death is that the Jurapari kills them. At an eclipse
they believe that this bad spirit is killing the moon, and
they make all the noise they can to frighten him away." —
' Travels on the Amazons and Rio Negro,' p. 530 : 1853.

The statement of Mr Bates ( ' The Naturalist on the
River Amazons,' vol. ii. ch. iii., pp. 162, 163, 1863) is suji-
stantially identical with that of Mr Wallace, his fellow-
traveller. The only definite information in it is that the
Indian Vicente did not know the cause of lightning,
and had never reflected on who made the sun, stars, and
trees. If Vicente had known the cause of lightning he
must have been more learned than a European savant
before the time of Franklin; and if he had meditated
on the maker of the sun, stars, and trees, his religion
must have been of a more thoughtful character than
that of the ordinary ancient Greek or Roman.

Appendix: Note XXVII. 523

If Ebrard's view (see * Apologetik/ ii. 359 and 366)
of the Malayan origin of the Tupi tribes of South America
could be established, it would follow that these tribes
must have gradually fallen away from the worship of one
supreme god, Tupan. No one, I think, who has not a
theory to maintain, can consider the circumstances in
which most of the Brazilian Indian tribes are placed
without coming to the conclusion that they must have
sunk from a higher intellectual and religious level.
Small colonies of English or Irish peasants placed in
the same circumstances would be certain to degenerate
rapidly.

Note XXVIL, page 265.
Alleged Atheism of North American Tribes.

For the evidence which Waitz has collected as to the
religion of the Indians of California, see ' Anthropologic
der Naturvolker,' Bd. iv. pp. 243, 244. Father Baegert's
account will be found in the Smithsonian Transactions,
1863-64, and Father Boscana's in Bancroft's 'Native Races
of the Western States of America,' vol. iii. pp. 161-170.

The works of Bancroft, Miiller, and Waitz are those
which contain most information on the religion of the
North American tribes, although the publications of
Catlin, Schoolcraft, &c., still retain their value. Dr
Brinton's 'Myths of the New World ' (1868) is not always
as convincing as it is interesting.

It is to be regretted that Miiller should have adopted
a theory which has so little real foundation as that the

524 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

worship of ghosts is characteristic of northern tribes and
cold regions, and the worship of the sun of southern
tribes and warm regions. This theory — which would
require Senegambia, for example, to be extremely cold
— injuriously affects his exposition, and still more his
explanation of facts. But his constant exaggeration
of the power of physical influences and comparative
neglect of the operation of historical causes do not
prevent his work from being valuable as a collection
of materials.

Note XXVIIL, page 269.

Alleged Atheism of Polynesians and
Australasians.

Jukes was only a single day on Dalrymple or Damood
Island. He found that the people had neat and good
huts, and he saw a building different from, and much
superior to, any of the rest. After describing it, he
says: "Whether this was their temple, their place for
depositing the dead, or a chiefs house, we could not
make out. We, however, saw no appearance of any
chief, or of one man exercising authority among them ;
neither could we discover any traces of religious belief
or observance." — * Voyage of H.M.S. Fly,' vol. i. p. 164.
This testimony is supposed by Sir J. Lubbock to be
evidence that the Damood Islanders are atheists.

Captain Wilson was unfavourably circumstanced for
making inquiries into the religion of the Pellew Islanders;
but no one, I think, who reads the interesting pages
(216-220) which he has devoted to the subject in his

Appendix: Note XXVIII. 525

* Account of the Pellew Islands,' will fail to find Sir J.
Lubbock's view of his evidence inaccurate.

Mr ^Vallace was six weeks at Wanumbai, and all that
he tells us of his residence there (see the ' Malay-
Archipelago,' vol. ii. ch. xxxi.) is confirmatory of his
own statement, that " he could not get much real know-
ledge of the customs of its people." He was himself,
however, regarded as a sorcerer, who would make his
dead birds and beasts live again when he returned to
England, and who had caused the unusual spell of good
weather which coincided with his visit.

The following works throw much light on the char-
acter of Polynesian beliefs : Sir George Grey's ' Poly-
nesian Mythology' (1855), Rev. R. Taylor's 'Telkaa
Mani' (1855), Waitz, vol. v., Fornander's 'Account of the
Polynesian Race,' vol. i., and the Rev. Mr Gill's ' Myths
and Songs from the South Pacific Islands' (1876).
They show that savages who have been supposed to
have no religious conceptions have had really a rich
mythology, resting on metaphysical ideas about the
source and development and order of existences, such as
a priori theorists and rash generalisers would have assur-
edly declared could never have entered a savage mind.

The most widely diffused Polynesian term for God is
atiia. According to Mr Gill, it signifies kernel, pith, or
life, God being conceived of as the core of the world and
the life of humanity ; according to Mr Taylor, beyond, as
a ina?i's shadow — Jmice a spirit, God, or anything beyond
our comprehensio7i. Max Miiller (* Hibbert Lectures,' pp.
89, 90) expresses himself very decidedly in favour of the
view of Mr Gill.

From a " Report on Australian Languages and Tradi-
tions " in the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute,

526 Anti-Theistic Theories.

Feb. 1878, I make the following extracts. The Rev. C.
C. Greenway, speaking of the Kamiloroi, says : "Baiami,
Baiame, or Bhiahmee, is regarded as the maker of all
things. The names signify 'maker' or 'cutter out,'
from the verb bhai^ baialli, baia. He is regarded as the
rewarder or punisher of men, according to their conduct.
He sees all, and knows all, if not directly, through the
subordinate deity of Turramulan, who presides at the
Bora. Bhaiami is said to have been once on the earth.
Turramulan is meditator in all the operations of Bhaiami
upon man, and in all man's transactions with Bhami.
'Turramulan' means 'leg on one side only,' one-
legged. Turramulan has a wife called Muni Burribian
— that is, egg or life, and milk or nourishing — who has
charge of the instruction and supervision of women.
For women may not see or hear Turramulan on pain of
death. The 'tohi' (smoke, spirit, heart, central life) —
that which speaks, thinks, determines within man — does
not die with the body, but ascends to Bhaiami, or trans-
migrates into some other form. It may be a ivandah
{tuundd) or spirit wandering about the earth. The
' bunna,' flesh or material part, perishes ; the * wundah '
may become a white man. The transmigration of the
'tohi' is generally to a superior condition; but those
who are very wicked go to a more degraded and miser-
able condition." Mr Thomas Honery, writing of the
Wailwun people, reports : " Bai-ame made all things.
He first made man at the Murula (a mountain between
the Narran and the Barwon). Bai-ame once lived
among men. There is, in the stony ridges between the
Barwon and the Narran, a hole in a rock, in the shape
of a man, two or three times as large as an ordinary
man, where Bai-ame used to go to rest himself He

Appendix : Note XX VI 11. 5 27

had a large tribe around him there, whom he fed at a
place called ' Midiil.' Suddenly he vanished from them
and went up to heaven. Still, though unseen, he pro-
vides them with food, making the grass to grow. They
believe that he will come back to them at some future
time." Of the aborigines on the Page and the Isis, we
are told that they believe that "the deity who comes
down at their 'Bora' is very good and very powerful.
He is very ancient, but never gets older. He saves
them by his strength. He can pull trees up by the
roots and remove mountains. If anything attacks them
he tears it to pieces." In the language of Illawarre,
" Mirrirui " is the word for God. " The people say that
' Mirrirui ' made all things. Their old men have told
them that there is, beyond death, a large tree, on which
Mirrirui stands to receive them when they die. The good
he takes up to the sky, the bad he sends to another
place to be punished."

In the same number of the above-mentioned journal,
Mr C. H. E. Carmichael draws attention to the account
given by Monsignor Salvado of the Benedictine Mission
in New Nursia, in Western Australia. It was long be-
fore the Benedictines ascertained that the natives had
any religious beliefs, as regarding these beliefs they
were " singularly and obstinately reticent." Ultimately,
according to Monsignor Salvado, it was found that
"they believe in an Omnipotent Being, creator of
heaven and earth, whom they call Motogon, and whom
they imagined as a very tall, powerful, and wise man of
their own country and complexion. His mode of crea-
tion was by breathing : e.g.., to create the earth, he said,
'Earth, come forth,' — and he breathed, and the earth
was created. So with the sun, the trees, the kangaroo,

528 Anti-Theistic Theories.

Szc. Motogon, the author of good, is confronted with
Cienga, the author of evil. This latter being is un-
chainer of the whirlwind and the storm, and the invis-
ible author of the death of their children; w^herefore
the natives fear him exceedingly. What is remarkable,
however, is, that although the natives believe themselves
to be afflicted by Cienga, they do nothing to propitiate
him. When a sudden thunderstorm comes upon them,
they raise hideous cries, strike the earth with their feet,
imprecate death and misfortune upon Cienga, whom
they think the author of it, and then take refuge under
the nearest trees. The general belief is, that Cienga
prowls about at night among the trees ; and for this
reason the natives can scarcely be got to stir from their
fire after sunset. Only mothers who have lately lost a
child will brave these dangers to go in quest of its soul,
and if they hear the cry of a bird in the bush, will spend
hours there calling upon it and begging it to come to
them. So strong is the Australian mother's love."

Note XXIX., page 274.
Alleged Atheism of African Tribes.

The second volume of Waltz's 'Anthropology' gives by
far the best general view of African religions. I should
have attempted to summarise his statements, had this
not been already and recently done by Professor Max
Miiller in his Hibbert Lectures. The facts collected
by Waitz show not only that all the African peoples
regarding which we possess any considerable amount

Appendix: Note XXIX. 529

of information have religious conceptions, but that the
belief in a Supreme Being is very widely spread among
them.

The travels of Baker, Barth, Cameron, Grant, Speke,
and Stanley have not contributed greatly to our know-
ledge of the religions of the peoples they visited. Their
not seeing in certain cases traces of religion, may per-
haps be some slight evidence that what is called fetich-
ism is not prevalent in districts which they traversed.

Sir Samuel Baker says of the Dinkas, Shilluks, Nuehrs,
and other White Nile tribes, that " they are without a
belief in a Supreme Being, neither have they any form
of worship or idolatry, nor is the darkness of their
minds enlightened by even a ray of superstition." But
as Mr Tylor ('Primitive Culture,' vol. i. pp. 423, 424) has
pointed out, the religions of these very tribes have been
described by Kaufmann, Brun-Rollet, Lejean, and other
travellers. All the evidence which Sir Samuel produces
for the atheism of the Latukas is a conversation with
the chief Commoro regarding the future life and the
resurrection. — See 'Albert N'Yanza,' vol. i. pp. 246-
250. The impression which the report of the conver-
sation leaves on my mind is, that Commoro was not
frankly stating his own views, but trying to ascertain
those of his interrogator. Even if this were not the case,
however, his disbelief of a future life was obviously a
conclusion arrived at through considerable reflection.
When Sir Samuel made a mistaken application of St
Paul's metaphor of the grain of wheat, Commoro detected
the fallacy at once. Sir Samuel was, in consequence,
obliged to "give up the religious argument as a failure;"
but instead of inferring that here was a Latuka Hume
or Bradlaugh, whose very scepticism plainly implied
2 L

530 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

religious thought, he concluded that "in this wild, naked
savage" ("one of the most clever and common -sense
savages that I had seen in these countries," says he
elsewhere), " there was not even a superstition upon
which to found a rehgious feeling."

Probably the best work on the Hottentots, Bushmen,
and Kaffirs is G. Fritsch's ' Eingeborenen Siid-Afrikas,'
1872. Canon Callaway's account of the religion of the
Kaffirs is well known; also Casalis' work on the Bas-
sutos. The sketches of the religion of the Hottentots
by Prichard in his ' Natural History of Man ' and ' Re-
searches' are very much superior to most of the later
accounts. The celebrated missionary Robert Moffat
affirms that the Bechuanas, Kaffirs, &c., have no reli-
gion j yet in chapters xv. and xvi. of his ' Missionary
I^abours and Scenes in South Africa ' he supplies a con-
siderable amount of evidence to the contrary.

Note XXX., page 275.

Alleged Atheism of Esquimaux.

Probably the best account of the religion of the
Esquimaux will be found in the introduction to Dr H.
Rink's 'Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo,' — see pp.
35-64. According to it, few traces of ideas as to the
origin and early history of the world and the supreme
powers are discoverable among them. They believe,
however, that the whole visible world is ruled by powers
or " owners," each of which is an iniia — a person or soul.

Appendix : Note XXXI. 5 3 1

They divide it into an upper and under world, and sup-
pose the latter to be the best, because it is warm and
rich in food. Its inhabitants are called the arsissut —
i.e.^ those who live in abundance. Souls which go to
the upper world are imagined to suffer from cold and
hunger. They are called the assartut — i.e.^ ball-players ;
and the aurora borealis is ascribed to their being engaged
in their favourite occupation. The supreme ruler dwells
with the happy deceased in the under world, and makes
the subordinate rulers helping spirits, or tornat, to the
angakut. A secondary deity, represented as a female,
is credited with sending forth all animals needed for food.
Witchcraft is distinguished from the power of the anga-
kut^ and, being deemed selfish and evil, is punished.
The Esquimaux have prayers, invocations, spells, am-
ulets, and a priesthood. Religious belief is the chief
connecting-Hnk between their scattered tribes.

Note XXXI., page 279.

Sir J. Lubbock's Miscellaneous Instances of
Atheistical Peoples.

Dobrizhoffer's work was originally published in Latin
at Vienna in 1784, but there is an English translation of
it by Sara Coleridge — ' An Account of the Abipones, an
Equestrian People of Paraguay,' 3 vols., 1822.

That the Hottentots, as Kolben reports, not only
worshipped the moon, but believed in a higher deity, is
distinctly testified to by G. Schmidt, Ziegenbalg, Kolb,

532 Anti-TJieistic Theories.

and other missionaries. The Kaffirs have derived some
of their chief rehgious conceptions from the Hottentots.
Thus the Kaffir Unkulunkulu has originated in the Hot-
tentot Heitsi-eibib, or moon-god — a fact which renders
very doubtful the conjecture of Mr Spencer and others,
that the former is to be regarded as merely a deified an-
cestor. Among the names by which the Kaffirs express
their highest and most general apprehension of divinity
— Utixo (the inflicter of pain), Umdali (the shaper or
former), and Umenzi (the creator) — the first has been
adopted from the Hottentots.

Colonel Dalton's account of the Khasias will be found
in pp. 54-58 of the work already mentioned, and Colonel
Yule's Note on the Khasia Hills and people in No. 152
of the Asiatic Society's Journal (1844). Hooker's account
(vol. ii. pp. 273-277) is drawn mainly from the informa-
tion of Mr Inglis, and quite agrees with that in Yule's
Note. His words as to the religion of the Khasias are
certainly curious, but Sir John Lubbock's use of them is
much more so. The words are, — "The Khasias are
superstitious, but have no religion ; like the Lepchas,
they believe in a Supreme Being, and in deities of the
grove, cave, and stream."

Note XXXH., page 289.

Polytheism.

The author at one time hoped to devote two lectures
to polytheism, and to the theories which have been pro-
mulgated regarding its origin, nature, and evolution, but

Appendix: Note XXX Til. 533

he has found it necessary to leave these subjects undis-
cussed, at least for the present. Had the limits of this
work allowed of their consideration, he would have
endeavoured to show that the view of the character and
conditions of theistic proof given in the third lecture
of ' Theism ' affords the only foundation for a true and
comprehensive theory of the natural development of re-
ligion. In the last volume of his ' Philosophy of History '
he will have an opportunity of examining whether the
hypotheses as to henotheism, animism, fetichism, spirit-
ism, the succession of the simpler phases of religion, &c.,
as held by Max Miiller, Mr Spencer, Mr Tylor, Sir
John Lubbock, and others, are psychologically well
founded and historically justified or not.

Note XXXHI., page z^l-
Pessimism.

Mr Sully's 'Pessimism' (1877) is the ablest work —
whether regarded as a history or a criticism — which has
yet been written on the subject of which it treats. It is
especially rich in excellent psychological observations
and suggestions. In the lecture I have felt constrained
strongly to express dissent from Mr Sully on one im-
portant point, but I cordially rejoice that there is in our
language such a work to which the student of pessimism
can be referred.

As to the history of pessimism, besides Mr Sully's first
eight chapters, Huber's ' Pessimismus' and Gass's ' Opti-
mismus und Pessimismus ' may be consulted.

534 Anti-TJieistic TJieories.

On Buddhism there are admirable works by Burnouf,
Saint Hilaire, Stanislas Julien, Feer, Senart, Koppen,
Wassilj ew, Schiefner, Spence Hardy, Rhys Davids,
&c.

The collected edition of Schopenhauer's works by
Frauenstadt is in seven volumes. Some translations
from them have appeared in the ' Journal of Speculative
Philosophy,' edited by W. T. Harris. For biographi-
cal information respecting their author see Gwinner's
'Arthur Schopenhauer, aus personlichen Umgange dar-
gestellt,' Frauenstadt and Lindner's 'Arthur Schopen-
hauer, von ihm, iiber ihn,' and Miss Zimmern's 'Arthur
Schopenhauer.' The German books, pamphlets, lec-
tures, articles, &c., on Schopenhauer and his system are
very numerous. Among English criticisms of his philo-
sophy one of the best is Professor Adamson's in ' Mind,'
No. 4. There is an excellent French work on 'La
Philosophic de Schopenhauer,' by M. Ribot.

Von Hartmann has given us a brief autobiography
which will be found in his ' Gesammelte Studien.' His
' Philosophic des Unbewussten ' is stereotyped in its
seventh edition. The ablest examinations of it known
to me are O. Schmidt's ' Naturwissenschaftliche Grund-
lagen der Philosophic des Unbewussten,' Renouvier's
articles in the ' Critique Philosophique,' Annee iii., and
Bonatelli's in 'La Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane,' 1875-76.
Hartmann published in 1872 an anonymous refutation
of his own principles and hypotheses — ' Das Unbewus-
ste vom Standpunkt der Physiologic und Descendenz-
theorie.'

Frauenstadt is, among pessimists, the writer most dis-
tinguished by good sense. His ' Briefe uber die Schop-
enhauerische Philosophic' (1S54) and his 'Neue Briefe'

Appejidix: Note XXXIIL 535

(1876) are valuable as expositions and apologies; while
works like his ' Das Sittliche Leben/ ' Blicke in die
Intel, phy. und mor. Welt/ &c., have very considerable
merits which are independent of their relation to a
system. In the 'Revue Philosophique' for May and
July, 1876, there is an essay by Hartmann on "Schopen-
hauer et Frauenstadt."

Bahnsen, to whom reference is made in the lecture,
has stated his views in ' Zur Philosophic der Geschichte '
(1872), *Das Tragische als Weltgesetz' (1877), and
other works. See regarding him Hartmann's "Un
nouveau disciple de Schopenhauer" in the 'Rev. Phil.,'
Nos. I and 2 for 1876.

Mainlander in his 'Philosophic der Erlosung' (1876)
rivals even Bahnsen as an apostle of despair. Says
Wundt : "A gloomy melancholy pervades this work,
which shows clearly how short a step it is from Schop-
enhauer's Will manifestations to a system of mystical
emanation. God, it is here set forth, was the original
Unity of the world, but He is so no longer, since the
world broke up into a multiplicity of particular things.
God willed that ?wugkt should be, but His essence pre-
vented the immediate coming to pass of nothingness;
the world meanwhile behoved to fall asunder into a
multiplicity, whose separate entities are all clashing with
one another as they struggle to arrive at the state of
nothingness. It is not, therefore, the Will-to-live, as
Schopenhauer said, that maintains the change of phe-
nomena, but the Will-to-die; and this is coming ever
nearer to its fulfilment, since in the mutual struggle of
all things the sum-total of force grows ever less. In the
view of this author, the highest moral duty is that nega-
tion of existence which would cut short the unlimited

53^ Anti-TJieistic Theories.

continuance of individual life in the future by the cessa-
tion of all sexual connection."

Taubert, Du Prel, Venetianer, Volkelt, Noire, Von
Hellwald, and various other writers in Germany, adhere
by slighter or stronger ties to the pessimist philosophy.

The best French work on pessimism is Caro's ' Pes-
simisme au xix^ Siecle' (1878).

Pessimists dwell, of course, on the sad realities of
suffering and death. As to these facts I may refer my
readers to the ingenious considerations by which Dr
Macvicar endeavours to show that they are not to be
regarded as limitations of power, wisdom, or goodness in
the Creator. See his ' Sketch of a Philosophy,' Pt. iv.
ch. X. This remarkable and profound work has not
obtained the attention which it merits.

Note XXXIV., page 341.

Histories of Pantheism.

M. Emile Saisset's ' Essai de Philosophie Religieuse '
is, on the whole, the ablest work on pantheism. A good
English translation of it, under the title of ' Modern
Pantheism,' was published by T. and T. Clark of Edin-
burgh, in 1863. It does not treat of oriental or classical
pantheism. It consists of two parts. The first part
contains seven historical studies or treatises with these
titles : (i) Theism of Descartes ; (2) God in the system of
Malebranche ; (3) Pantheism of Spinoza ; (4) God in the
system of Newton; (5) Theism of Leibnitz; (6) Scepti-
cism of Kant ; and (7) Pantheism of Hegel. A common

Appendix : Note XXXI V. 537

aim connects and unifies these treatises — namely, the en-
deavour to trace the development and to test the worth
of the pantheistic notion of Deity. The second part is
composed of nine meditations on the following topics :
(i) Is there a God? (2) Is God accessible to reason?
(3) Can there be anything but God ? (4) God the Crea-
tor; (5) Is the world infinite? (6) Providence in the
universe; (7) Providence in man; (8) The mystery of
suffering; and (9) Religion. The fifth meditation is the
most questionable in its reasoning. M. Saisset contends
that the infinity of God implies the infinity of the created
universe, but only a relative infinity ; or, in other words,
illimitable extension in time and space. His chief argu-
ment for the conclusion is that there is no proportion
between a finite creation and an infinite Creator, and
hence that the creation must be relatively infinite in
order to be worthy of the Creator. Obviously, however,
if the argument be good at all, it is good for more than
this conclusion. There is no proportion between abso-
lute and relative infinity. If a finite creation cannot be
worthy of an absolutely infinite Creator, neither can a
relatively infinite creation be worthy of Him ; but crea-
tion must be an effect completely equal to and exhaustive
of its cause ; or, in other words, pantheism, against
which M. Saisset has so ably contended, must be true.
There is a criticism of M, Saisset's work in Dean Han-
sel's 'Letters, Lectures, and Reviews.'

The 'Essai sur le Pantheisme' (1841), by the Abb^
Maret, is a work much inferior to M. Saisset's ; but it
contains a considerable amount of information, and its
reasoning is often judicious and conclusive. It was very
favourably received by the Roman Catholic clergy of
France, one of its leading ideas being that a denial of

538 Aiiti-Theistic Theories.

the doctrine of the Roman Cath